alt Hacker NewsGiant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches: new research
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I don't get why it is believed that trees can't pump water above a certain limit, all it should take is a system of valves, something that plants already have for other purposes. It certainly isn't lumuted by trees literally sucking water up as that would limit them to a height that can be easily exceeded by the majority of trees.
It seems that trees just don't grow that tall anymore. Even common trees such as the spruce seem to be able to reach 100m, they just kind of don't.
One possibility is the depletion of nutrients. But what I think is to blame is the lack of elephants. They constantly ruined young trees and the lucky few that survived then grew huge. Perhaps the redwoods were actually created by the natives, who removed young trees, and kept the old trees standing.
Kurzgesagt has two videos on trees addressing this and other questions.
This goes against all previous research/measurements for actually tall trees (looks like they only considered up to 80m) and the fact that there are exactly zeros trees in the world taller than 130 meters [1]. Wide capillaries at the base, like stated in the article, don't seem to be related.
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/REDWOODS-How-tall-can...
The largest tree on record is rejected in part because it's over the theoretical limit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nooksack_Giant
Too bad we cut it down, along with almost every other giant Douglas-fir.
>Giant trees have no trouble pumping water to top branches
Hm, may be because they are not really "pumping" the water?
Folks still sleeping on structured water.
While admittedly contested and only reproduced by a few labs outside Gerald Pollack's at University of Washington, there is a solid case that it could play a role in transporting water and sap to the tops of trees. At least, it's involved in the motion induced in hydrophilic tubes when there is sufficient ambient radiant energy (uv/infrared).
Relevant papers:
"Exclusion-zone water inside and outside of plant xylem vessels." 2024 Scientific Reports. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-62983-3
"Surface-induced flow: a natural microscopic engine using infrared energy as fuel." 202 Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba0941
"Long-range forces extending from polymer-gel surfaces." 2003 Phys. Rev. E. https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.68.031408
Pollack's site: https://www.pollacklab.org/
Some critiques of Pollack's theory:
Schurr, J.M. (2013). Phenomena associated with gel–water interfaces: analyses and alternatives to the long-range ordered water hypothesis. J. Phys. Chem. B, 117(25), 7653–7674. https://doi.org/10.1021/jp302589y Elton, D.C., Spencer, P.D., Riches, J.D. & Williams, E.D. (2020). Exclusion zone phenomena in water — a critical review of experimental findings and theories. Int. J. Mol. Sci., 21(14), 5041. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21145041 (open access; the most thorough critical review) Elton, D.C. & Spencer, P.D. (2021). Pathological water science — four examples and what they have in common. In Water in Biomechanical and Related Systems (Biologically-Inspired Systems, vol. 17), pp. 155–170. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67227-0_8 (preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.07287)
on the other hand, many giant trees get the water out of the air via fog:
Coalescence of coastal fog accounts for a considerable part of the trees' water needs.[23]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_sempervirens#Fog_and_f...
“The root cause is nailed down (not a theory anymore)…” —Claude
Any truth to whether water pumped by tree (branches) is potable?
I’m glad to find the trees are doing well, even the big ones, that managed to grow big... ???
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I grow marijuana and chillies from time to time. I got good at it. I will say that plants are malleable in untold ways and so I find this article to be unsurprising.
Plants will do what they need to do in the end. I've done stuff like co2 bombing, and increasing nutrients to the point to where I get a whole new ecosystem of insects and an entirely new situation.
It is such fascinating stuff that it's actually the life I want to live. I'm a computer scientist but now I yearn for the botanical sciences.
I highly recommend checking out defoliation strategies and low-stress training methods for anyone interested. Plants are not dumb creatures. The results you can get from them are astonishing and the science of what plants actually are becomes more profound by the day.