Root Failure When The Ground is Saturated with Rain

climbingmonkey24

climbingmonkey24

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
United States
Do you think when we’ve had periods of real heavy rain / flooding where the ground is saturated, that could increase the risk of root failure, etc.? Do you still proceed forward with work or give the ground time to dry up?
 
Happens around here with spruce. Usually combined with either rain or a bunch of snow melting, and then high winds while the ground is saturated.

If the winds are mild, I’d have no safety issue with working in the tree while the ground is wet. The guys working in the mud and more than usual damage to the client’s lawn might make us reschedule though.
 
A lot of chemical bonds in the soil are ionic, which are about as strong as covalent bonds when they are dry and about as weak as hydrogen bonds when they are wet. If you're going to rig big on a leaning tree, I would applaud you're aplomb if you had a plan for wet soils.
 
A
Jonny said:
Happens around here with spruce. Usually combined with either rain or a bunch of snow melting, and then high winds while the ground is saturated.

If the winds are mild, I’d have no safety issue with working in the tree while the ground is wet. The guys working in the mud and more than usual damage to the client’s lawn might make us reschedule though.
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happens here too, but usually only the first major rain with high winds, I suspect the small feeder roots are less active in holding the soil after a dry period. After a month or two of even mild infrequent rain doesn’t seem to happen so much even if a sudden heavy downpour and high winds.
 
I’ve never given it much thought until recently.

Generally would you think it’s better to put climbing work off during periods of heavy rain / soil saturation to wait until it dry’s up or...?
 
A lot of rain can definitely increase the likelihood of uprooting trees, we see that around here for sure. I’ve never had a fear of climbing or rigging after a heavy rain, I don’t see that the forces I would put on the tree to be anywhere near the stress the tree had just sustained during the storm that brought the rain.

Only time I get worried is if the tree is partially uprooted, but that’s a different case altogether anyway.
 
Reach said:
A lot of rain can definitely increase the likelihood of uprooting trees, we see that around here for sure. I’ve never had a fear of climbing or rigging after a heavy rain, I don’t see that the forces I would put on the tree to be anywhere near the stress the tree had just sustained during the storm that brought the rain.

Only time I get worried is if the tree is partially uprooted, but that’s a different case altogether anyway.
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You’ve climbed partially uprooted trees?
 
Reach said:
I have. Depends on how uprooted they are, but I prefer to guy them to something, another tree if possible. Used a crane one time to support a tree so we could drop some pieces off before we could lift the rest of it off with the crane.
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I get anxious and freaked out climbing a standing tree thinking something is gonna happen never mind one that’s uprooting.
 
colb said:
A lot of chemical bonds in the soil are ionic, which are about as strong as covalent bonds when they are dry and about as weak as hydrogen bonds when they are wet. If you're going to rig big on a leaning tree, I would applaud you're aplomb if you had a plan for wet soils.
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Isn’t water sticking on something a hydrogen bond?
 
Generally in my neck of the woods, trees fail when it's rained for a few days saturating the ground then the wind blows. But like evo was mentioning, it isn't the roots giving out most of the time, it is usually the tree being poorly rooted to begin with and just separating. Most of our trees are growing in very shallow soil, either with clay layers just beneath the surface or on rock. Being heavily forested, you can usually look around and see uprooted trees from past years/decades storms and get a good idea of soil/root conditions.

All that said, I just wait for the wind/storm to stop. Climbing after a lot of rain isn't something that's ever worried me.

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Heavy rains and wind uprooted this large apple tree in my backyard this past Friday. We've had very heavy rain this year here in SE Michigan and so it was overburdened with fruit. I pruned about 200lbs off of it to give it a break only two days before the uprooting. It had three leaders, two growing more or less upright and the third growing out horizontal at about 40 degrees from grade. I had contemplated removing this leader many times in the last five years but it was about 8" in diameter and the tree is very robust. Needless to say, that weight cantilevered out combined with about half a day of very heavy rain tipped her right over. No wood failure above grade, just roots. I'm going to try removing a bunch of weight while it's on the ground, along with the horizontal leader which I've already cut off, and try to stand her up again. This is a long answer to your question but this literally just happened Friday due to saturated soil so I thought I'd share.
 

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Njdelaney said:
Heavy rains and wind uprooted this large apple tree in my backyard this past Friday. We've had very heavy rain this year here in SE Michigan and so it was overburdened with fruit. I pruned about 200lbs off of it to give it a break only two days before the uprooting. It had three leaders, two growing more or less upright and the third growing out horizontal at about 40 degrees from grade. I had contemplated removing this leader many times in the last five years but it was about 8" in diameter and the tree is very robust. Needless to say, that weight cantilevered out combined with about half a day of very heavy rain tipped her right over. No wood failure above grade, just roots. I'm going to try removing a bunch of weight while it's on the ground, along with the horizontal leader which I've already cut off, and try to stand her up again. This is a long answer to your question but this literally just happened Friday due to saturated soil so I thought I'd share.
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I hope you play with it a bit. Maybe some short props just to get it off the ground? I’ve worked more than a few failed apples. My favorite was an apple almost 24” in diameter, shell wall of only a few inches and the stem broke, basically one root held a shark tooth of trunk little over 1/3 the diameter was left. This sprouted some epicormic sprouts which are being trained into a new tree.:

I wish I could take credit for that one, but I was only there to give quote which I never got..
 
I plan to. Even if I did nothing it would go on living for who knows how long. When upright it plays a big role in our yard in terms of providing shade, bird habitat, privacy screening, fruit, etc. Also there's lots of things planted under it(now smothered by it) that my wife isn't willing to let go without a fight, so a fight it will be!
 
Several years ago, I was working for a small municipality north of Houston and we had some really odd patterns of trees uprooting. The clay content in the soil was really high in the area and we had just gone through a long dry spell followed by some very thorough soaking rains. Trees were uprooted in different directions with no wind to get excited about. After some long conversations with people smarter that we were, we came to the conclusion it was the soil heaving the trees over with rapid shrinking and swelling from the weather extremes. Ever heard of that?
 
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