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Farewell, Giant Pine: Global Warming Kills a Champion at Washington Park Arboretum

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Desdemona Despair

 

 

By Lynda V. Mapes
13 May 2017

(The Seattle Times) – It saw the flight of Boeing’s first jet; the World’s Fair, the founding of Microsoft. It survived the eruption of Mount St. Helens, witnessed the state’s centennial, and the confession of the Green River Killer.

But after 72 years, Pinus rigida 212-45-C, the state’s champion pitch pine, has died and will be cut down at the Washington Park Arboretum.

The cause of death was climate change: steadily warming and drier summers, that stressed the tree in its position atop a droughty knoll. Red turpentine beetles, catching the scent of stress chemicals emitted by the tree as it struggled, bored in.

The beetles chewed and fed on the tree’s phloem, conduits just below the bark for the tree’s life-giving juices. Just as damaging, the beetles were vectors for fungus that plugged up other conduits carrying water into the tree. It wasn’t long before arborist Clif Edwards, making his usual rounds, noticed something amiss in the pinetum, the collection of pines at the arboretum.

“I saw this big orange (tree) canopy in the sky, got closer to investigate, and got the not-so-good answer,” Edwards said.

He alerted other experts at the arboretum, who confirmed by the plethora of exit holes about the size of the point of a crayon that the tree was badly infested with beetles. Now the tree must be removed before the infestation spreads to other trees in its grove, noted David Zuckerman, manager of horticulture for the arboretum.

Since 2005, the arboretum has lost some 40 pine trees in just this way, as warming average temperatures combine with summer’s drought to stress trees. The arboretum has not in the past irrigated its collection of pines. But staff will begin pouring on the TLC with mulch and water this season to help its collection of stressed pines, Zuckerman said.

But for this big old pine, it’s too late.

And so the next stop for this tree is the Cedar Grove composting facility, the only way to safely and quickly dispose of the big logs that this tree will soon become.

Every last bit of the tree will be removed, even grinding the stump. Its tag — already removed, leaving the bare hook bereft in the tree’s bark — will be recycled, and the tree’s epitaph recorded in the arboretum’s saddest ledger: its Dead Plant Report.

In an arboretum boasting more than 21,000 trees, shrubs and vines in its collection, each one, for those who care for them, is an individual. Zuckerman and Ryan Garrison, plant-health specialist at the arboretum, were quiet Friday, as they examined the pine and made plans to cut it down later this month.

“I try to look on the bright side,” Zuckerman said. This pine is survived by two others on the knoll from the same gift of seeds from the New York Botanical Garden. “And this will make space for a new plant,” Zuckerman said. “Something that does not need summer water.”

[Read More]

Farewell, giant pine: Climate change kills a champion at Washington Park Arboretum


Source: http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/05/farewell-giant-pine-global-warming.html


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    Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

    Total 4 comments
    • dj dawg

      So what their having a fire wood sale? Its only been around since WWII no big deal chop it down and plant a new one then in 7O years chop it down. The earth will survive don’t worry.

    • Detergent

      Climate change, climate change, climate change …

      This tree (Pinus rigida) died early because it was transplanted away from and was not living in its natural climate. This tree is native to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Pinus rigida are not native to Washington State.

      Jeez. Sometimes I just want to puke.

      • Detergent

        Probably thousands of people will read this piece of bs propaganda and believe it without doing one shred of research as to whether it’s true. They’ll believe that “climate change” is killing the trees in Washington state, when in reality these particular trees are not from Washington state, but are transplanted from a different climate altogether.

    • DISPENSER

      We KNOW it was Global Whining, because big trees never, ever die.

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