Frost Damage

In midsummer of 1957 severe losses in beds of two year old balsam fir and ' white spruce were noted despite adequate irrigation. At first the loss was attributed to insects, because the roots were cut off at a depth of approximately 1 1/2 inches but no one could identify the insect by the damage, and no culprits could be found in the soil. So many trees were dying that the insect population would have had to be tremendous and operating at a constant depth. Mr. Charles Clement, U. S. F. S. Forest Tree Nursery Specialist, on his visit to the nursery, thought we should do some investigating by digging up samples of the soil. The soil is a light loamy sand. Several samples were dug to the depth of the shovel and removed with care so as to disturb the soil as little as possible. Definite cleavage lines could be seen in the soil profile running horizontally, and at the depth of the most pronounced cleavage line, about 1 1/2 inches, the seedling roots had been snapped off (fig. 1). It was possible to separate the layers of soil along the cleavage lines.

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Author(s): C. Ingersoll Arnold

Publication: Tree Planters' Notes - Issue 31 (1958)