ISA HK/China --- ChinaTree News (Why China can not produce quality Landscaping Trees?)

*** Station Mail is for the information of Station Members only, but Station Mail has given up copyright & can be freely circulated. For administrative reasons, comments from outsiders are usually not entertained & may be circulated within our system locally & overseas.***

Dear Station Members,

The attached piece of news came out from a national newspaper in China. It showed a 'Model Tree Farm' in China producing what they would reckon as 'quality landscaping tree'.

By international standards, arborists would look at a quality landscaping tree for the followings:

1. Central Leader --- A straight stem from bottom to top for growth form prediction & good structure.

2. Taper --- Trunk & branch narrowing from base to tip for maximum wind resistance.

3. Live Crown Ratio (LCR) --- Height of foliage / Height of tree. A 67% LCR is most desirable because it proves the tree has enough foliage to carry out Photosynthesis & good wind resistance.

4. Strong Branch Attachment (SBA) --- Diameter of branch / Diameter of Stem to be less than 0.5 at point of union for SBA. This is for good wind resistance against breakage.

5. Adequate Sized Rootball --- Recommended rootball size is 10 x DBH for maximum transplantation survivability & rapid recovery after transplantation.

The above are just a few of the most obvious requirement for good nursery stocks in Western Nations.

Let's now see whether this 'Model Tree Farm' can meet the international requirements.

1. Central Leader --- The Central Leaders for a lot of trees so shown went straight up for a while, but then branched out to form Co-dominant Stems or Multi-Branching.

2. Taper --- hardly any Taper can be detected from these trees.

3. Live Crown Ratio --- Most of the trees have a LCR below 40% as far as the picture can tell.

4. Strong Branch Attachment --- At the branch unions, it can be seen that SBA does not happen for a lot of the shown trees, making them vulnerable to break in wind.

5. Adequate Sized Rootball --- The trees were planted very close to one another. It appeared that the tress were only 2 m apart. During lifting, especially for the trees in the centre, roots of the adjacent trees will get in the way. To drag a tree so heavy & tall from the middle of the planting in this scenario, machines rather than humans would need to be deployed. However, machines are unlikely to enter this jungle of trees while they are planted so close to each other & human labour would seem to be the cheapest alternative. And how much heavy can human labour uplift ?? If not, the rootball will have to be trimmed very small to facilitate lifting & the tree is likely to be topped for dragging out among other trees. The trees so seen grown in a 'good' form will come out like match sticks with football-sized rootballs for use in the landscape.

Then why can't our brothers & sisters try to produce landscaping trees to international requirements?

It is because they produce trees with their forestry production methods. Forestry trees are produced for economic values & Taper, Live Crown Ratio & Strong Branch Attachment are not desired. Forestry trees will be logged out at the end & therefore a 10 x DBH rootball is not a consideration. In commercial consideration, who would like to buy a wooden pillar with Taper & SBA anyway? Excessive branches are wastes & will require labour to cut off. Then the wastes would require transport to dump. Customers would buy only clean logs without branching & very straight stem without rootball. Our brothers & sisters are simply producing landscaping trees in a complete wrong manner !!

What is seemingly hard to change in China is not the construction of the nation, but the mentality of the people. In Chinese, we say ' 江山易改，品性难移'. For those of us who must buy from the Chinese & have to follow their supplying standards, we wish them good luck. However, bringing them down to our territory is likely to increase maintenance & to produce Tree Failures in the longer run. We may buy cheap for a quick fix, but ruin our landscape for our children. The many Tree Failures in the past year have given facts for themselves. Is that not even good enough to make us think twice? If not, why not ??

Would anyone now doubt why ETF was set up 3 years ago to give an example of quality landscaping trees to our brothers & sisters in China?

best regards,

Sammy Au
Station Manager