Rob Keeble
Member
- Messages
- 12,633
- Location
- GTA Ontario Canada
For months now i have been trying to find information and figure many of you guys have probably lived through numerous ice storms in your life.
So here is what i want to know.
We had a really bad ice storm in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, trees came down like matches snapped between two fingers. That i could understand and we saw the damage.
In some cases like the younger birch trees they got bent over real bad but did not break yet when the ice melted they also did not return to normal.
So time moves on and we get to the stage where the temp warms up but i am talking about it dances with breaking zero. And i start to notice one heck of a lot more trees damaged that previously. As it has warmed even more i see even more of this damage to branches.
So my question is did the ice storm break some of these branches but they were frozen stuck in place and then when the branch began to thaw it snapped at the "unseen break" under its own weight?
Or was the wood and cells etc within the branch affected in some other way such that when the branch as a whole thawed it just did not have the mechanical strength to hold itself.
I have definitely observed additional damage that was not present at the time of the ice storm and want to figure out how it all works.
The trees had to live through below zero most of winter this year which has not been the case in prior winters.
Anyone know about what happens through the ice storm cycle and then the post warm up period ?
Our tree canopy really took a serious hit this year and i can see many trees not only battling to recover but being open to all sorts of infestations given the open wood from breaks.
Some of the breaks have occurred at the trunk where the branch joins the tree, but many are branches that are say diameter of average persons biceps and snapped off in the middle somewhere.
Be interested to know more if you can share. Thanks
So here is what i want to know.
We had a really bad ice storm in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, trees came down like matches snapped between two fingers. That i could understand and we saw the damage.
In some cases like the younger birch trees they got bent over real bad but did not break yet when the ice melted they also did not return to normal.
So time moves on and we get to the stage where the temp warms up but i am talking about it dances with breaking zero. And i start to notice one heck of a lot more trees damaged that previously. As it has warmed even more i see even more of this damage to branches.
So my question is did the ice storm break some of these branches but they were frozen stuck in place and then when the branch began to thaw it snapped at the "unseen break" under its own weight?
Or was the wood and cells etc within the branch affected in some other way such that when the branch as a whole thawed it just did not have the mechanical strength to hold itself.
I have definitely observed additional damage that was not present at the time of the ice storm and want to figure out how it all works.
The trees had to live through below zero most of winter this year which has not been the case in prior winters.
Anyone know about what happens through the ice storm cycle and then the post warm up period ?
Our tree canopy really took a serious hit this year and i can see many trees not only battling to recover but being open to all sorts of infestations given the open wood from breaks.
Some of the breaks have occurred at the trunk where the branch joins the tree, but many are branches that are say diameter of average persons biceps and snapped off in the middle somewhere.
Be interested to know more if you can share. Thanks