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After the MEGA icestorm,my tree survey is Complete

Finch

Whats it to ya?
I posted this in a nother site but thought it might be of interest here. Awhile back, we here in SD had a mega icestorm dumping 1 1/2 inches of ice on the tree branches here. After Long walks throught town, the resuts:

Heavy damage to the trees in town, but 90% of the damage was from afew common, select species.


Results from my observations, by the #. Yes I have been keeping statistics.

6 worst damaged trees. Percentage that sustained moderate to heavy damage, by species.

Cottonwood (90% of trees damaged to some degree)
willow (80% of trees damaged)
Green ash  (75%)
Norway maple (60%)
birch (40%)
Russian olive (30%)

* the Norway maple was surprising, because although most trees in this list lost many major branches, this tree was the one killed most often from splitting almost directly in half... many still standing one have large visible cracks down their center trunks. Scary. I had no idea these trees did that.

Least damaged trees:

Oak (10%)
Kentucky coffeetree (12%)
Buckeye/ Horsechestnut (15%)
Elm (15%)
Honey locust (20%)

(And most conifers, little damage)

Surprises: These surprised me because even with 1 ½ inch thick ice did not sustain as much damage as reputation suggests. Indeed, these were usually not severely damaged

Silver maple (22%)
Hackberry (17%)
Acer X freemani ( 23%??)
Aspen (30%)


Oddities:

The 37 foot lilac (not the tree lilac, the shrub species) with a 4  in. DBH Trunk lost major branches

The big multi snaking trunked Mungo pine 30 feet tall did not lose any branches dispite its shrubby branching structure
 
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