Landscape and Turf Maintenance
By Brandon Gallagher Watson
hieves sneaking into the orchards of
Leonardo da Vinci to steal apples may
have been successful once — but not
likely twice. Legend has it that da
Vinci was so fed up with these impious pome pinchers he devised a way
to inject lead arsenic into the trunks
of the trees in hopes of poisoning the fruit to, in
turn, poison the thieves. If this is true, it not only
makes da Vinci a spiteful neighbor who's stingy
with his apples, but also makes him one of the
first pioneers in the field of tree injection.
There are even earlier accounts, from the 12th
Century, of Arabian horticulturalists attempting
to inject various compounds into trees in an attempt to alter the fragrance or color of flowers.
The success of these trials has been lost to history, but it does show that people have long been
interested in the idea that various treatments
could be injected into the vascular system and
transported throughout the whole tree.
T
Tree injection has
many advantages
over other application
methods.
INJECTING
SOME CLARITY
INTO TREE
INJECTION
A micro injector that uses tees and plugs.
All photos provided by Rainbow Treecare Scientific Advancements
16 Landscape and Irrigation November/December 2012
Modern tree injection began in the mid 20th
Century and looked to utilize this technology for
the benefit of tree health rather than simply aesthetic or apple-orchard-security-system purposes.
Just as the advent of the syringe and needle revolutionized the way doctors approach human
medicine, the advent of reliable equipment, the
formulation of injection-specific chemistries, and
a growing knowledge of the science behind tree
injection has revolutionized tree care.
Tree injection has many advantages over other
application methods. It can be used in situations
where spraying the whole tree is not feasible or
where soil applications are not an ideal option.
There are also certain tree health treatments, especially for the management of vascular wilt diseases, where tree injection is the only treatment
that has been shown to be effective. Additionally,
in the era of increasing public sensitivity to
chemicals in the environment, tree injection also
has the positive perception that the treatment is
contained entirely inside of the tree, minimizing
environmental exposure.
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