Won't they have problems with the low genetic diversity the same way Cavendish bananas seem to be in problem now?
The redwood trees are still able to sexually reproduce with other variants, unlike the banana trees that are cultivated for crops.
Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
81–90 of 121 posts
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can currently purchase redwood seeds online to grow yourself! Plant them in peat moss in large groups to be sure they survive, as most seeds are not viable. Keep them warm until they germinate, too! However, redwoods are really, really destructive anywhere that isn't a wide open field. Their roots will tear up concrete and pipes. Also, they shed branches like crazy during rapid growth, which deals damage to surro…
Found them to be difficult to grow. Average dry flat air is not good, to wet and they rot. Need water spray regularly.
Yes, coast redwoods grow where there’s plenty of ocean influence. Hence the name..
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
This usage of the word "cloning" is widespread in the horticultural community, and it's indeed used by your average garden as well.
Yep, even the act of rooting stem cuttings is often referred to as "cloning".
Plants are just a hell of a lot easier to clone than animals.
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#84“Cloning” here seems the wrong (click-batey) choice of words. They have horticulturally propagated redwood trees - that’s a relatively simple technique, commonly used by your average gardener. What’s special here is that they found which conditions maximize the yield of the redwoods propagation and they are planting colonies of the new trees in areas around the world that offer particularly good/promising climatic co…
> As these are very large trees, establishing large colonies can have a relatively meaningful impact in carbon capture. Surely it's not size but speed of growth that matters? Wouldn't forests of Leylandii (a fast-growing conifer that can grow as fast as 1m/year) felled and resowed every few years/decades capture more carbon?
But clones are not the right way, because genetic variability is zero and is easy to obtain and germinate seeds that make a better root system.
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#85That stump is sad reminder of greedy destruction we have bought to the world. I hope we can reverse it.
For anyone looking to offset their carbon emissions, I looked into the various options and settled on Cool Earth[0] as the most promising charity for this. Here's some commentary on them from independent research on charities[1]: "We estimate that Cool Earth is able to reduce emissions by 1 tonne of CO2-equivalent for every $1.34 donated, for directly protected forest specifically (although this figure may be as low…
"At this stage the information gathered doesn’t allow me to give a strong opinion on Cool Earth, but I would recommend that we now consider the earlier [Giving What We Can] analysis out of date."
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RnmZ62kuuC8XzeTBq/...
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, we're essentially terraforming Earth...
The only human activity so far on a large enough scale to impact the biosphere as a whole is fossil fuel use. If you want to count that as "terraforming." We could add nuclear weapons to that list, if we ever decided to use them.
> The only human activity so far on a large enough scale to impact the biosphere as a whole is fossil fuel use. If you want to count that as "terraforming."
I must be misunderstanding you; the majority of places in the world today are radically different than they were pre-human. That seems pretty inarguable.
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#87Where and when can I buy one? Look, this is one of those cool cases where the free market may be able to help the environment instead of harming it. Sell these seedlings for $200/each. Some number of people (myself included) will happily buy them, then plant them wherever and the world has more of these amazing trees. The funds can be used to further the cause of helping forests and old trees.
I couldn't agree with this more. Living in the midwest though I'm sure these tree's won't be able to live here. That being said I'd love to see a list of trees that work well as carbon sinks for other geographic area's.
Any tree will be a carbon sink, some just grow faster than others. I'm pretty sure the Arbor Day Foundation can tell you which trees to plant in your particular locality.
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#88Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#89“Cloning” here seems the wrong (click-batey) choice of words. They have horticulturally propagated redwood trees - that’s a relatively simple technique, commonly used by your average gardener. What’s special here is that they found which conditions maximize the yield of the redwoods propagation and they are planting colonies of the new trees in areas around the world that offer particularly good/promising climatic co…
"As these are very large trees, establishing large colonies can have a relatively meaningful impact in carbon capture." Maybe ... I live on a ranch where redwoods grow and I was interested in reforesting some of it in an attempt to offset the carbon emissions of my family, etc. My very rough back of the envelope calculations suggested that planting 40 coast redwoods would offset the embedded carbon (carbon cost to ma…
You might also consider that the vast majority of the offset provided by those trees is in the 9th, 10th years of them being planted. The 20th-30th years for those same trees may be offsetting substantially more (site dependencies not withstanding, etc..).
Re: Arborists Have Cloned Ancient Redwoods from Their Massive Stumps
#90“Cloning” here seems the wrong (click-batey) choice of words. They have horticulturally propagated redwood trees - that’s a relatively simple technique, commonly used by your average gardener. What’s special here is that they found which conditions maximize the yield of the redwoods propagation and they are planting colonies of the new trees in areas around the world that offer particularly good/promising climatic co…
> As these are very large trees, establishing large colonies can have a relatively meaningful impact in carbon capture. Surely it's not size but speed of growth that matters? Wouldn't forests of Leylandii (a fast-growing conifer that can grow as fast as 1m/year) felled and resowed every few years/decades capture more carbon?
No - a large tree grows at lower rates, but puts on much more mass (sequesters much more carbon) per year.
edit: see figure 6 in https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal..., for example. And http://science.time.com/2014/01/15/study-shows-older-trees-a... (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12914) specifically for redwoods. Key quote: "at the extreme, a single big tree can add the same amount of carbon to the forest within a year as is contained in an entire mid-sized tree"