Paulownia tree

[MossRoad]

Well, there you go, Richard. The link that Doc has posted confirms all of your observations. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Nice job, Doc.

 

[Richard]

Ditto what MossRoad said

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[OkeeDon]

I find it interesting that the earlier link posted above said the tree has up to a 45 foot tap root, while this one says it has shallow roots, no taproot and is structurally unsound. I wonder which one is right, or neither? It's almost like they're talking about different trees!

 

[Richard]

Though I dont know the technical answer, I can tell you what I found once.

Father in law had a plant that was growing under his foundation and outward at an angle under his overhang. The thing sprouted up from "nowhere" and was growing like a weed.

Long story short, he was going to let it grow to "see what happened" but he told me about it. When I went over to see it, I recognized it as one of these trees. He immediately did a laugh and an "omg" at the same time realizing that a tree might cause more damge than a large 'weed".

None the less, the tree was probably 8, 10 feet tall. I took a round point shovel, dug once into the ground and POP. The tree came right out. I had the backhoe with me and was prepared to put a strap around tree so we could pull it up/out but it turned out to be quite easy. also, as I recall, the rootball was rather small.

We transplanted the tree to see what would happen, several weeks later, the wifes cousin was next door at his fathers and we were over visiting. He happend to ask if we noticed the huge WEED we had growing over on our hill /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif Seems it runs in the family blood.

We had a good laugh that everyone thinks our poor tree (that we are proudly trying to keep alive) is a large weed.

I dont have a digitial type camera, but I'll try to get some pics of the various trees we have (including the weed if it's still standing) Oh, and none of them have leaves now, so they look somewhat anemic.

Bad part is, won't have film back for several days.

Richard

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I can't think of a higher calling than growing trees. And when you consider this tree has an even more committed opinion of heavy clay, I'm interested.

Now if only that ship can come in without wrecking the port..........

 

[Big_A]

On my 50 acres here in central VA I've got about 10 Paulonia trees. Most are mature. We didn't plant them, they were there. I love there fragrant blooms in the spring. I've got one in the middle of a field that I have run over with the brush cutter for the last five years. It keeps coming back. I decided to let it live this year and, after starting from nothing, it has grown to about eight feet in one season. I really think these trees give kudzu a run for their money as far as speed of growing.

 

[sweettractors]

We had a small grove of these about 10 years ago. They were found on our farm by a timber fellow that was making a bid on all trees that were marketable. He was very excited to find these and we received a good price for the 10-12 that was harvested along with about a 1000 native species they cut. Today these trees have spread all along the 1 mile strip of woodland that was cut 10 years ago. It seems the reducing of competition from other species, lets them spread and thrive. --Ken Sweet
Sweet Farm Equipment Co. *Since 1977*

 

[PBMAX]

I read some ware you can watch Kudzu grow. It said Kudzu vines have been known to grow 7" in a day. Never watched it that close, but I've noticed when the county cuts it back a couple of feet from the road it grows back about a week...

So now they tend to use poison...as well seems to work better but is ugly...

our biggest pest tree in bamma would be the MOMOSSA looks like a overgrown fern with pink flowers. even fuel wont kill it...

 

[Taylortractornut]

Paul here in NE MS Kudzu can grow 18 inches per night. One road here by a sewage pond it has the road stained green from cars grinding it up. Kudzu is a good hill billy biological revenge weapon. I had a load of Topsoil off a job I was working on and a friend and I would stay late and sell our dirt. We had noticed a few extra tracks there and followed them to an older fellas orchard. He informed us who he was and who he was kin to and that he would be back that evening to get more and we couldnt do squat. My friend and I went back and stripped the vines off the top pf a Kudzu patch with a dozer and then piled it. We moved our top soil and then replaced it with the good baited soil. The next morning every bit of it was gone atleast 150 yards of it. That was 2 years ago and now you cant even tell an orchard was in that area.

 

[Richard]

BOTH of these next pic's are from my fire locations.

You might notice a bunch of vertical shoots sticking up out of the ground. Although I SUSPECT this cluster is a year younger than the next pic I'll post, what I've learned is the Paulownia will end up being either a "fast growth" or a "slow growth" tree... evidently, that is dictated by how much sunlight the tree can get. The better the sun, the faster it grows, the wider the growth rings, the LESS value the tree has in it's market. If it grows in an area with less light, it grows slower (like these in pic) and has tighter growth rings.

The NEXT pic posted is a tree on top of hill that gets sunshine all day, where as THIS pic is an area that gets mostly shade because of the woods.

These two tree sizes are to my best guess, either the same age, or at most, one year different.

It's quite a size difference