sotc
Dormant hero!!
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
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?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.