Tap roots

sotc

Dormant hero!!
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I went out on a consult today and in the course of discussion it was brought to my attention that Ponderosa pine has a tap root 30 something feet deep! I politely disagreed explaining how I had seen Pondos well over 100' tall that had uprooted with hardly a root 3' deep and had ground many stumps with the same experience. She told me it was on I.S.A.'s website and she would go find it for me, I said i'd like that. She came back with this http://home.earthlink.net/~swier/PonderosaPine.html site and referd to
Ponderosa pine has a deep taproot, unlike many other conifers in the southern Rocky Mountains. Young trees start by growing a long taproot that may go down farther than the main stem grows upward. This allows the young tree to survive drought that can dry out the topsoil. Mature trees may have a taproot up to 36 feet deep; they also grow a lateral root system that extends as much as 100 feet from the tree to absorb surface moisture quickly from rain and snow. These roots make it very difficult to uproot Ponderosa pine by wind.
I told her I would look into it and let her know what I found. Anyone here ever seen a taproot on a tree 36' deep?
 
I thought taproots were a myth.

Seriously...I thought only baby trees had taproots and they only went down a couple feet and eventually the roots spread much wider.

36'....wow!

love
nick
 
What I have heard is that roots need oxygen and if they go deep, they don't find it. Most tap roots in this area go down less than 18 inches and turn off to the side. I am very skeptical of the idea of 36' tap roots.
 
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heres few from my past
 

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Except for some weird anomaly, I doubt we're going to find a tree with a 30' taproot.

However, our perceived knowledge may be tainted by our experience. Maybe when we see roots of trees, we only see the few that have fallen, and those fell because they...DIDN'T HAVE THEIR TAPROOTS!!!

Seriously, though- I'm thinking the author of the webpage was perhaps misguided. On the same page it also says:

"Seedlings require above-normal precipitation, and that must continue for several years until the new trees are established..."

It goes on to explain that there are a strict set of factors that ideally need to be met for a tree to survive into maturity. It explains that because of this, there aren't really "that" many pondos around these days.

If they could grow a taproot 30' long (to find deep water), you'd think there'd be a lot more big pondos around.

We have some in the woods around LA that grow well over 150'. They are fun to climb!

love
nick
 
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Except for some weird anomaly, I doubt we're going to find a tree with a 30' taproot.

However, our perceived knowledge may be tainted by our experience. Maybe when we see roots of trees, we only see the few that have fallen, and those fell because they...DIDN'T HAVE THEIR TAPROOTS!!!

Seriously, though- I'm thinking the author of the webpage was perhaps misguided.

Some of the same thoughts crossed my mind. Though it seems most of the pines I have seen fail including those pics, have been due to soil failure (saturated). Rarely do I see uprooted pines growing in rock, no doubt due to roots intertwined in unmoving "soil". One thought I had when posting this thread was that it may be possible to create conditions where a root may grow that deep in an experiment. Interesting to think about
 
36' taproot possible if conditions--O2 + H2O--are right. yes most taproots die off as tree ages. how is the soil at this place?

that sheet was NOT on the ISA site--would have flunked peer review. I do like the Peattie caption though, from one of my favorite books.
 
I have seen taproots well in excess of 10 to 15 feet on longleaf pine that have uprooted as well as on construction sites where they had been excavated.
 
I can't say for sure how deep they might do .This I can say that tree in a fence line or near the edge of a woods will have a much sturdier root system that one protected from the wind by other trees .
 
Taproots ARE mostly a young tree thing. Species and conditions do make for exceptions. Saying a Poderosa Pine may have a taproot up to 36 feet long is equivalent to saying that Caucasian human males may attain weights in excess of 1000 lbs. Has it ever happened? Yes. Is it normal? Absoferkytoodlinlutely not.
 
Dubious, inebriated or tired, y'all need to know that hydraulic lift is well documented in many disciplines, and has been recognized for centuries.

Roots will grow where roots can go.

The really cool part happens when the roots of one plant transfers water to the roots of another plant. Talk about symbiosis--this is fundamental. Kinda blows the absolutist concept of "competing vegetation" out of the...water. ;))

Read Roots Demystified, by Kourik. And the resources in the English 104 paper linked above. Or,,,look closely at grass roots when you weed your natural areas. They are intertwined with tree roots; for better or...?
 
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