How to tell the Age of a Tree

Last week as I was walking through the forest, I saw a fallen tree and I noticed the rings in the trunk. These rings reminded me of a project I did in the sixth grade and from that I was inspired to write this post. For the project, you had to do research on one aspect of a tree, and I chose the age of the tree. I thought that I would share my knowledge with you!

HOW TO TELL THE AGE OF A TREE

One way to tell the age of the tree is by counting the rings inside of it. This method gives you the exact age, and is one of the most common. New methods have developped, and know you can estimate the age of a tree by its circumference. All you need to know is the species of tree, and how they respond to different climats. Knowing this, you can estimate the age of the tree.

FACTS ABOUT THE RINGS

Telling the age of a tree is super simple. All you have to do is count how many rings there are. The rings can get difficult to read depending on there size, but they are usually very clear. The rings come in all different sizes depending on the year. When a ring is quite big, that means that the weather was exceptional that year. If the ring is really small, there might have been a drought that year. When there is a black area, you can see that it is damage from a forest fire.

This tree is about fifteen or sixteen years old. When it was two, three and four it had good growth years. Towards the end, the climate was not as good, which is why the rings are small and hard to read.

WHY ARE OLD TREES IMPORTANT?

New research tells us that old trees store more carbon then younger trees. The preservation of old trees is essential. They provide hollows for animals to nest in and they provide an abundance of seeds and nectar. The loss of old trees is a world-wide problem. We must stand up for our old and young trees.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed or learned something new, please consider liking this post and sharing with friends! Stay tuned for more posts coming soon.