[deleted]
Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
41–50 of 61 posts
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are coppicing and pollarding used at all to produce timber? I had the impression that it was done only to make firewood, and was cut repeatedly without letting it grow like described in the article.
Ben Law in the UK used a sweet chestnut coppice as timbers for his house. Done properly coppicing can not only produce renewable and sustainable timber, but it is one of the only woodland management techniques that has significant positive impact on the ecology of the woodland in which it is practiced. https://ben-law.co.uk/
Some of the big "evil" forestry practices are now known to be helpful. Even clearcutting, if done in strips, is know to open up diverse habitats, replacing a uniform forest with a more varied one more amenable to animals.
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#43It's cute because it's trees.
Somehow I keep thinking Mad Max where women were kept just to produce baby and milk, or Alien where alien "subtree" sprouted from human "tree".
I guess nature/human is cruel?
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#44https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37759366 Same discussion 3 years ago
Thanks, macroexpanded, and another one...
Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37759366 - Oct 2023 (102 comments)
Daisugi, the 600-year-old Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26941631 - April 2021 (171 comments)
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#45I don't quite understand -- what is it about this technique that makes the trees grow perfectly straight and why is > the lumber produced in this method is 140% as flexible as standard cedar and 200% as dense/strong, ?
This article is just a rehash or summary. Check out one of the sources it links to (since the other is broken) for details on the technique: https://mymodernmet.com/kitayama-cedar-daisugi/ The strength & flexibility I would guess are attributable to the lack of knots and the straightness of the grain. One thing both writers keep doing that's annoying is calling it a cedar. The tree is cryptomeria japonica , known as…
Few trees called "cedar" are in the Cedrus genus. To be fair many of these were called a type of "cedar" before the Cedrus genus was even coined. Cedar really just means "a really good tree" (for woodworking)
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#46Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ben Law in the UK used a sweet chestnut coppice as timbers for his house. Done properly coppicing can not only produce renewable and sustainable timber, but it is one of the only woodland management techniques that has significant positive impact on the ecology of the woodland in which it is practiced. https://ben-law.co.uk/
Some of the big "evil" forestry practices are now known to be helpful. Even clearcutting, if done in strips, is know to open up diverse habitats, replacing a uniform forest with a more varied one more amenable to animals.
I agree. In reality the only "evil" forestry practice in my mind practices are illegal logging. When everything is done by the book (my context is the UK) then there's a 10 year management plan (normally), felling license (always) and a re-stock agreement (always). It's a crop, but the public don't get that message and tend to view harvesting as an ecological tragedy. The clearcutting in strips is referred to as strip felling in the UK. Another one used increasingly more is continuous cover[0].
With a few narrow exceptions most timber crops in the the UK are monocultures or very limited mixes of pines/spruces/firs which outside of nesting season support very limited ecosystem. Even then the management plan for the site would have to account for species present and respond accordingly. Badgers? 20m no go zone from their sett and it may involve another license from Natural England.
I tend to operate at the border of woodland management and forestry. Coppicing typically tends to fall into the woodland management category due to the smaller scale nature of it, especially for when it is for "green woodworking" or craft use. The larger scale biomass coppice sites are very firmly in the forestry size, but still retain the ecological benefits to an extent.
[0]: https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/research/continuous-cover-...
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article is just a rehash or summary. Check out one of the sources it links to (since the other is broken) for details on the technique: https://mymodernmet.com/kitayama-cedar-daisugi/ The strength & flexibility I would guess are attributable to the lack of knots and the straightness of the grain. One thing both writers keep doing that's annoying is calling it a cedar. The tree is cryptomeria japonica , known as…
Few trees called "cedar" are in the Cedrus genus. To be fair many of these were called a type of "cedar" before the Cedrus genus was even coined. Cedar really just means "a really good tree" (for woodworking)
TIL that PNW Western Red Cedars are not in fact, Cedar trees!
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
>with a healthy dose of orientalism added on top Also known as 'Thing, Japan'. HN eats up articles like this every single week. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thing-japan
> Also known as 'Thing, Japan'. HN eats up articles like this every single week. And invariably the top comment is a "Thing Also in Europe/US" smugly citing that the commenter knows about something that's vaguely similar which happens to be in their neck of woods rather than Japan; and therefore makes the article irrelevant (this part is never adequately explained). The most recent one I remember was reacting to some…
What! Well thats absurd. Canada has more convenience stores than Poland!
Re: Daisugi, the Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees (2020)
#50Isn't this just Pollarding and/or Coppicing, which have been practiced for at least 2000 years in Europe (and probably many other cultures as well), with a healthy dose of orientalism added on top?
Please link a photo of a coppice/pollard in Europe that's as straight as this, along with the location where I can see it. If you do, I have got a great new travel destination. If you don't then everyone else (and hopefully you too) will understand why people think this is special enough to link beyond the fact that it happens to be in Japan.
The parent commenter rightfully criticizes these kinds of sentences:
> Necessity being the mother of invention, this led to the creation of an ingenious solution: daisugi, the growing of additional trees, in effect, out of existing trees — creating, in other words, a kind of giant bonsai.
It tries to sell something as completely unique. It’s not. For example this sentence should emphasize what’s unique with daisugi, because there is a very good English word with this exact same meaning as written in this sentence: grafting.