Interesting reading material for a cold winter evening. Abstract to be found here:
https://www.creaf.cat/en/articules/deciduous-trees-roots-remain-active-winter
https://www.creaf.cat/en/articules/deciduous-trees-roots-remain-active-winter
Study- No winter halt in below-ground wood growth of four angiosperm deciduous tree species
- Thread starter Linn01
- Start date
BrianBay9
Masterpiece
Fascinating! I'm curious how roots continue to fix carbon without photosynthesis? Building wood from already fixed carbon - stored sugars - I get. But are they suggesting roots are capturing carbon from CO2? From some other soil components? Transfer from symbionts? This article was not clear on that point.
In re-reading the article they talk about deciduous trees fixing carbon in winter, but then talk about using "stored carbon" for wood production. To my way of thinking stored carbon = sugars. So the trees don't "fix carbon" found in CO2. I think that portion of the article is misleading.
In re-reading the article they talk about deciduous trees fixing carbon in winter, but then talk about using "stored carbon" for wood production. To my way of thinking stored carbon = sugars. So the trees don't "fix carbon" found in CO2. I think that portion of the article is misleading.
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Melospiza
Shohin
Yeah I don't understand why the article makes it sound like trees capture carbon in winter, rather than just converting sugars into woody tissue. Also that bit about nutrients and proteins makes it sound like roots somehow produce them in preparation for spring growth. How?
Wires_Guy_wires
Imperial Masterpiece
I think the researchers differentiate between fixed in wood (long term fixation) and stored as sugars/starches (short term, or 'not even fixation' since it's not actually fixed in place).
Gabler
Masterpiece
The article seems to imply that this is new information, but we've always known that. Any one of us could have told them that roots continue to grow in the winter, and trees store carbohydrates and nitrogen compounds in their roots in preparation for spring growth.
ShadyStump
Imperial Masterpiece
It's been speculated here many many times, and often stated as scientific fact, but until now we've yet to see much hard research shared here. I chock it up to finally conducting the science to support what we've previously only observed anecdotally. Seems small, but now that it's proven (more or less,in scientific terms) researchers can use the exact data we now have to start more detailed analyses of exactly what trees' needs are during dormancy, and more importantly HOW dormancy happens at all. In many ways it's actually a big deal.
Notsureaboutplantnames
Sapling
Reading the abstract, they do not mention C fixation by the roots which would be pretty amazing unless there were some photosynthetic microbes living in the outer bark of the roots.
The term fixation may have been used in this brief article to mean C reallocation for continued "differentiation of xylem cells in growth of the older roots".
It does introduce an interesting question: How much of the reallocated C is then available for shoot growth from the roots. The roots are a long way from the developing spring buds in many trees.
I understood that energy from bud swelling came from stem stored C and nutrients while new leaves are photosynthetic and also act as sinks from stored C in the stems. Summer or late spring growth uses newly translocated nutrients from the soil.
What an interesting rabbit hole that lead to. Thank you.
The term fixation may have been used in this brief article to mean C reallocation for continued "differentiation of xylem cells in growth of the older roots".
It does introduce an interesting question: How much of the reallocated C is then available for shoot growth from the roots. The roots are a long way from the developing spring buds in many trees.
I understood that energy from bud swelling came from stem stored C and nutrients while new leaves are photosynthetic and also act as sinks from stored C in the stems. Summer or late spring growth uses newly translocated nutrients from the soil.
What an interesting rabbit hole that lead to. Thank you.
Yup. I put my grow boxes on the ground in early November and come March the roots have escaped the box.
Does this mean that the notion that roots basically stop doing their thing below 40 degrees is simply not true?
