City Trees is a premier publication focused on urban + community forestry. In each issue, you’ll learn how to best manage the trees in your community and more!
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/115252
units and therefore better tree population estimates." Wiseman hopes that this procedure will be embraced by i-Tree programmers and lead to enhanced accuracy for all users of the esteemed i-Tree suite of tools. Trees and Stormwater Management Systems (http://urbanforestry.frec.vt.edu/stormwater) Day and colleagues like Dr. Nina Bassuk at Cornell's Urban Horticulture Institute (UHI) and Qingfu Xiao at UC Davis have completed research on trees in stormwater retention sites like zero-runoff parking lots. Day says, "When we first started, there was a lot of skepticism about whether tree roots would grow into structural soils that are intermittently saturated, and whether roots would penetrate the subsoil below the structural soil reservoir. Since we did our project here and the UHI project in Ithaca, it's pretty much accepted that trees can grow in these systems and that they can be a part of the stormwater management picture." Now Day would like to explore the perceptions of different people about trees and stormwater. Day says that preliminary survey data collected by Ph.D. candidate Tom Martin show that there is strong agreement across a range of professions that ��������������������������������������������������� ���������������������������������������������������� ���������������������������������������������������� �������������������������� trees mitigate stormwater runoff, but that there are misperceptions about trees frequently leading to their removal during development, sometimes for rain gardens or other bioretention facilities to be installed. "If you have well-managed soil allowing deep tree root growth," Day says, "it manages a lot of stormwater— you don't necessarily need to put in a special pit to collect water." She wants to see trees more successfully incorporated into the BMPs for stormwater management. Tree Stability in Conventional vs. Engineered Soil Profiles (www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S161886671000052X) In collaboration with Dr. E. Thomas Smiley at the Bartlett Tree Research Lab, Wiseman and former graduate student Julia Bartens set up an experiment that looked at how tree stability and tree growth response differed in engineered ("skeletal") soils versus mineral soils in conventional tree pits. They found that "certain tree species planted in conventional tree pits may be more prone to uprooting due to poor root system development and that root anchorage might be improved for these species by utilizing a skeletal soil mix." ���������������������������������������������������� ��������������������������� ����������������������������������� ��������������������������� ������������������������������������� �������������������������� ���������������������������������������������������� ����������������������������������������������� 24 City Trees