Big New 400 Million Year Old Ideas
If 2014 is the year of the Entrepreneur and big ideas, then surely Tree Morphogenesis and the first book by that name, is a product of the time.
Fundamental organising principles of almost everything have surely been defined by science or so you might think, but Tree Morphogenesis book 1 describes such a fundamental organising principle and how it is expressed in the morphology of trees!
The most significant idea to emerge from this study is that trees are actually designed by their long evolution, to be pruned (by wind).
This is a new perspective for a tree care industry that has become used to delivering a range of strategic tree services, few of which bear much resemblance to how trees are designed to be pruned and this work should prompt any tree care professional to review the services that they offer to their clients, (especially if those clients read this book).
It starts with a simulation of a tree growing in primeval woodland and describes the different types of growth that the tree adapts to different phases of its life and this example illustrates in detail how most trees adapt as they grow.
Seeing the tree as a product of it's time is one perspective but seeing the tree as an expression of the genotype of that species that is evolving through time, is another perspective that might intrigue readers and form one corner of their deeper understanding of their own trees.
Best of all, once these and the other insights are understood, the reader will appreciate just how little management trees really need and they will have a renewed respect for their elegant efficiencies, based on understanding how they grow and work dynamically in wind.
If there is one concept that all tree owners should expose themselves to in order to orient themselves more emphatically with trees, it is contained in the Tree Morphogenesis Project and best of all we periodically make the Kindle version free to download. Goodness it's spring already and the book launch for the printed version is long overdue, so expect the free download soon.
Understanding natural design and the morphogenesis of trees is the foundation of this work and one outcome is effective bio-mimicry in the Simulated Wind Pruning. So if the new idea for trees is to understand the oldest idea (the fundamental organising principle that applies to almost all Families of trees) and if it is presented in a way that convinces the reader that the author is reminding them of things that they already know (because I am), then that surely is a BIG IDEA.
Kindle has enabled this book to be read all around the world and the reviews from readers are wonderful, thank you. It is for tree owners and professional Arborists alike but primarily, it is written for tree owners in order to rekindle a relationship based on fundamental understanding.
You will find links to the Kindle version or the first edition in print from www.TreeMorphogenesis.com .
Arboricultural Consultant, Contractor, Inventor and Author
10 年"One thing I do see missing from the literature Is the effect of leverage load as mass becomes terminal." You are quite right, there is a shortage of such insights in existing literature (but look at Mattheck- Design In Nature), however I have also started to cover this issue by looking at one manifestation of the tree's mass displacement in relation to diameter, the Resonance Frequency of trees and parts of trees. Best of all, it is an issue that Arborists can sense in the pit of their stomach and use to literally tune (or perhaps de-tune), a tree.
Arboricultural Consultant, Contractor, Inventor and Author
10 年Hi John Paul Sanborn By "designed" I mean creatively influenced by environmental fluctuations that trees have to endure. Once an evolutionary benefit manifests as an evolutionary advantage, it becomes something that seems design, but in reality random mutation of genes in an ancient proto-tree gave it an evolutionary advantage over less adaptable forms. Consider Acute Forks (the subject of a whole chapter of my book), if it is not an advantage for trees to include these weak these structural forms, why have they not been evolved out and lost to the fossil record? Acute forks are common and so their inclusion in the evolved design of trees, most deliver a strategic benefit to the species.
PD Dir & Master Arborist at Crawford Tree & Landscape
10 年I don't think it is so much a design to be pruned as each has a fail-safe for the environment it evolved in. The concept is more shedding of limbs which can also be from light loss or contact with other canopy or unyielding objects (say an outcrop or cliff face.) Many arborists see this and prune for loading characters of the given limb, species, environs. One thing I do see missing from the literature Is the effect of leverage load as mass becomes terminal. I.e. The far the out a limb the greater force is applied to the cantilever arm that is a limb. Fore a esthetics and longevity we want to mimic natural shedding so that the limb can endure weather loading that it has not adapted to through diameter growth beyond the moment of bend.