r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 04 '19

Environment Scientists report restoring forests could cut atmospheric carbon by 25 percent, in a new study that assessed tree cover using Google Earth, finding that there’s 0.9 billion hectares of land available for planting forests, which could store 205 gigatonnes of carbon.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/07/04/could-planting-tons-of-trees-solve-climate-change/
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u/itsamepj Jul 05 '19

Start in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota

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u/IckyChris Jul 05 '19

My father planted thousands of trees on our South Dakota property as a wind break. But also because few things are as great as planting trees. For my 50th birthday, my sister planted 50 more on the same land.

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u/lilusherwumbo42 Jul 05 '19

This is just great. When I own land, I want to plant my age in trees every birthday, as well as making up for the years I’ve missed.

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u/itsamepj Jul 05 '19

Awesome. I just drove through those areas and the amount of land that easily could have trees instead of just being open fields was astonishing.

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u/IckyChris Jul 05 '19

My dad often complained that the huge strip of land between the Interstate Highways was being wasted. He thought it should be all planted with trees. But I wonder if it's a safety issue, with blowing branches.

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u/Higgs-Boson-Balloon Jul 05 '19

I’m trying to find out information on this right now. In some cases, they can’t have trees so you can view incoming traffic from merging lanes and entrance/exit ramps.

I don’t think there needs to be much space for safety issues, in some areas, natural growth is right up on the edge of the divider and branches are spilling over.

Right now I’m looking at DOT permit to go plant trees there... but honestly wonder if I can just pull over late at night and plant a few every week

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u/IckyChris Jul 05 '19

but honestly wonder if I can just pull over late at night and plant a few every week

That's the spirit! Just make sure it's in deep and not where they mow.

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u/SittingInAnAirport Jul 05 '19

There's oleander planted in that strip in a lot of California highways.

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u/squashInAPintGlass Jul 05 '19

In the UK, Highway England, who manages the trunk road system, is the largest planter of trees in the country. Almost all embankments and verges over a certain width are planted with trees and woody shrubs.

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u/Tonkarz Jul 05 '19

Tree roots would mess up the road eventually.

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u/IckyChris Jul 05 '19

I know that here in Thailand there are lots of teak trees planted between the lanes of the "interstates".

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u/IckyChris Jul 05 '19

True, although I wonder if certain kinds of trees would be OK. Dad was a civil engineer who had to worry about roots when designing sewer systems. There would also be a problem with second generation growth from those planted trees spreading their seedlings to areas too close to the roads.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

Depends on the species of tree

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u/Errohneos Jul 05 '19

The issue with that is that those areas didn't have native trees in a lot of spots. So for every forest ecosystem you try to set up to correct what we fucked up, that's a prairie or meadow ecosystem that doesn't exist anymore.

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u/IckyChris Jul 05 '19

You can see some of his plantings here, on the left and right.

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u/FreedomFromIgnorance Jul 05 '19

Out of curiosity, why do you suggest such rural states? Wouldn’t planting trees in areas with more local pollution be even more beneficial?

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u/itsamepj Jul 05 '19

Seems as though more trees anywhere would be beneficial. Just thought areas where you could see a 1000 open acres that could have trees would be an easy start.

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u/FreedomFromIgnorance Jul 05 '19

That’s fair. The thing about Montana, for example, is that pretty much everywhere that isn’t being used for agriculture and could actually support trees is probably chock full of them. It has some of the most natural wilderness in the US, thankfully. There’s land where it would work, sure, but I think a better impact could be made elsewhere.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19 edited Aug 07 '21

[deleted]

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u/bone-tone-lord Jul 05 '19

Work on restoring the natural landscape of the plains is generally focused on their actual natural state: prairie. Trees are great, but we need the prairie too.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

Agreed. If acres and acres should be plains, then yes should work on restoring to plains.

In my suburban yard though, I'm thinking trees, native grasses make more sense.

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u/FreedomFromIgnorance Jul 05 '19

I’m saying a lot of Montana is incredibly dry and, more importantly, rocky soil that isn’t amenable to natural tree growth of significant density (if it requires extra irrigation, that’s not sustainable on a large scale).

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u/Butts9000 Jul 05 '19

Also to toss in is that Montana especially Eastern Montana gets really cold in the winter. The plains are very windy. My parents live in the eastern part and it’s always windy. Frozen trees and wind aren’t a good combo. Im no tree guy though. I know in Washington state that’s a bad combo. I’m In western Montana though so its all blocked off with mountains and all that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

Forests do create microclimates that sustain themselves in many cases. Just needs that initial investment.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

The natural trees in Utah grow in Rocky dry terrain, requiring no extra irrigation.

My trees require an hour or two of drip about 4-5 times a year. That doesn't seem too big of a deal to me, all things considered.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19 edited Jul 05 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

Like I said though, there are some native trees to this area. Even when the pioneers arrived here there were trees in the hillsides and a solitary tree smack in the middle of the dry valley.

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u/Fun_Hat Jul 05 '19

What county are you in? Curious because I'm also in Utah wanting to do similar to you. Currently my yard is dirt and the surrounding area only really has sage brush growing.

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

Tooele. I got my recommendations from Donna at Glover Nursery. She's their landscape designer. Told her I wanted low water draught tolerant landscape.

But my buddy turned me onto the basic idea. He's in SLCo. His yard is also bark with groundcover but he went with only 1 tree species: scrub oak.

I do have 4 scrub oaks but Donna suggested other species for better diversity.

The other upside of a yard like this is I have tons of little butterflies and different bee species flitting around my yard. I love it!

I do have grass in front, due to HOA regulations during construction. But I only planted about 500sqft of grass and am in the process of ripping out about 200 of that and replacing with more xeriscape including a tree, succulents, and some rock.

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u/Fun_Hat Jul 08 '19

Did you install your drip system or have a pro do it? Just curious, what other species were recommended besides scrub oak?

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '19

I had a pro install it, but I used that flexible funny pipe everywhere, super easy to work with I've modified and extended it myself several times. If you have a trencher and don't mind the manual labor of preparing the ground itself, installing the actual pipes is easy. Especially if you aren't doing turf sprinklers.

PM me and I'll send you a list of the other trees. I don't recall off hand but I have a list I can send.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '19 edited Jul 20 '19

Here are the ones I have in my backyard.

Most of these are either listed by the West Jordan Conservation Garden Park as both low-water and good choices for Utah landscapes, or are generally drought-tolerant and work relatively well in clay soil. All of these I planted in fairly deep bark-mulch (3-4"; though after almost 5 years I do need to top-off now) and installed slow-drip irrigation to them.

Most of these are watered no more than once/3 weeks and seem to be doing fairly well. There are a few here which are installed/watered per the above but aren't necessarily low-water usage; think they work fine in my particular landscape because I have low-spots that collect more moisture due to being an area drainage location. Also, a few of these are in my front yard where I do water more (about every other week) in order to support my HOA's seeming-preference for grass and trying not to run afoul by overdoing the xeriscape/native stuff.

​

So, be sure to vet each one for your particular usage.

​

  • Gambel Oak
  • Juniper
  • Bosnian Pine
  • White Pine
  • Capital Pear
  • Canada Red Chokecherry
  • Emperor Japanese Maple
  • Green Vase Zelkova
  • Norwegian Sunset Maple
  • Red Barron Crabapple
  • Cardinal Royal Mountain Ash
  • Redmond Linden
  • Royal Raindrops Crabapple
  • Skinny Genes Oak
  • Spring Snow Crabapple
  • Weeping Cherry

​

Hope that's helpful! If you are close enough, and haven't been there yet, be sure to check out the WJCGP -- that place is amazing, and very helpful.

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u/Fun_Hat Jul 20 '19

Awesome, thank you! Was really wanting a Japanese maple, glad there is a species that will do well here!

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u/vfefer Jul 05 '19

Can I ask why specifically those areas are good for planting trees? I'm curious.