After the deadwood thread

[KevinS]

After reading (part of) the deadwood thread it got me wondering. Slightly off topic but if you do deadwood and remove all debris to keep everything 'neat looking' but regularly and properly mulch the tree how much does that mitigate the removal of all the cwd? We use chips, so no dye varying sizes etc.

In my mind I know it's different but proper mulching should be fairly equal to leaving downed cwd. Or does it only make up 50%, 80%....?

 

[guymayor]

Excellent question! According to scientific calculations, mulching can be up to 83% better biologically than leaving cwd, and 794% better aesthetically, in more formal landscapes.
It depends on the objective.

 

[KTSmith]

Can that improvement of 83% be accounted for by the increased surface area and faster decomposition? I'm not quibbling with the number (although I chuckle at the conveyed impression that the precision is to within a whole percent). The "better aesthetically" part...depends on whose aesthetic sense is involved!

 

[treehumper]

maybe there's a +/- factor he's not expressing. say +/- 5% and 150% on the aesthetics?

 

[guymayor]

Increased surface area, yeah, and increased soil coverage, but half-joking obviously. I'm thinking there might be a biological benefit in cwd though in the mycorrhizal fungi etc in bark and twigs.

So many variables; hard to generalise.