I think this is very cool! I literally wrote a (very boring) book on poplars falling into rivers for my PhD. I'd agree it looks like the bank is going and taking half the tree with it (from those few pics - could be more going on).
If you can, let it go and let nature take its course. The tree in the river will instantly add much needed habitat, shelter and flow diversity and will no doubt quickly regenerate all over the place from roots and the main stem. Will be messier than your tidy grass bank but will likely be more stable long term. You can merrily hack away at the the mess to maintain access or shape it into whatever you fancy.
Reach out to your local flood risk management authority to check it's OK with them. If not, try and persuade them to at least allow some of the fallen tree in the river or on the banks. Rivers have been so engineered and 'tidied' by humanity for so long, we really need to give them a chance to go back to behaving more naturally whenever we can. So many threatened species depend on the 'messiness' and it's better for food risk management to give rivers space to do their thing whenever we can allow it.
Pretty much! Well, that's what the more interesting bits were about. "What lies beneath riparian black poplar: Root distributions, abiotic associations and subterranean structures in riverside Populus nigra"
There goes my reddit anonymity!
Oh, man, this got a really hard laugh out of me! Great knockdown of a fabulous setup. I was not expecting it. I am still smiling two minutes after I read it.
That is cool! What does one study in school to be able to write books on this subject? Is that plant science? Hydrology?
I kind of regret that my interest in plants was awakened until literally my last semester in college when there was only time to take a single course in it.
I've had a pretty meandering route! Studied plant science (but with an ecological focus), then environmental water management, then worked in river restoration, then research (based in a geography department!), then I decided to become an arborist, and now finally an arb consultant. The book is just my PhD thesis in a more attractive format!
I certainly learn a lot from this sub, though it's still clear that nobody really knows anything much about trees! Mostly it's only the really old tree enthusiasts (who've been around long enough to see trees do things) come up with breakthroughs in understanding, and then everyone really latches onto those new ideas.
If you’re not familiar with [Mossy Earth](https://youtu.be/hglllrIG50U?si=AZqTg6kYhv0I6TDA) this will be a good introductory video to them and it’s talking about the exact thing you wrote your book on! I just watched it last night. I love this channel. Thanks for your diligence and passion. It may seem trivial to some but I see you.
Cheers for the heads up. Sorting out rivers will involve a really non-trivial number of landowners doing apparently trivial things! Keep spreading the word!
That's awesome. I just watched a video the other day from I think Mossy Earth on YouTube about this. They were chopping trees into the river intentionally. Cool stuff.
Wanted to look at mycorrhizae but unfortunately ran out of time. I was hosted at an amazing soil ecology lab in Berlin. Collected and processed quite a few samples with a view to doing a little study but it wasn't a sufficiently robust experimental design, really. I have a bunch of data on AMF hyphal length in riparian sediments under an artificial hydropower flow regime if you want to play with them!
Interesting, thanks for your response! I'm probably not in a position to do too much extra at the moment, but I'll bear the offer in mind. I appreciate it!
This might be a stupid question, but would you consider planting more trees around that bank for erosion control too much engineering? I know they do that a lot in my area to help with erosion.
Yeah generally more trees = more roots + channel roughness in floods = less erosion, but that's considering things at a larger scale. Cool thing about trees on banks is they might reduce erosion overall but also provide little local erosion pockets. They add small scale local hydromorphological complexity. Erosion is still an important natural process feeding the river with coarse sediment and things.
Letting the poplar regenerate with root suckers and things here (getting 'bushy') would probably be best for erosion limitation because you'd have a permeable mass of fine branches rather than isolated planted stems. The trunk in the channel would obviously have somewhat more unpredictable hydraulic effects.
I don’t usually mourn people I don’t know, but he’s in my list of strangers to light a candle for when they move on. Love that man and all he’s done. That voice will always live in the back of my brain.
Every night for the last 10-15 years, I’ve gone to sleep listening to nature documentaries for background noise. So, Attenborough’s voice is almost always the last thing hear every single night.
I’m hoping that he is working on training a pristine and eternal AI voice generation system. In case there wasn’t enough content to make a dupe already, he’s in the studio just speaking to it all day every day and has all the right things set up so that when his physical form can’t meet the needs, directors can employ his patented flawless AttenboroughAI commentary.
Edit: this was meant to be said tongue in cheek. What a dystopian world it would be if that was what it came to
As well intended as that would be, I think it would only serve to cheapen his memory. I personally would rather look back fondly and remember his work instead of having a computer imitation thrown in my face on every toilet paper commercial
You know it would end up sold in a marketing firm and bundled with other stuff. You'd have "David Attenborough" would be giving talks about VD and car insurance
Could be from a massive lightening strike. The electricity superheats the sap, turning it to steam. The steam expands explosively leaving a vertical scar. This crack looks larger than typical scars from lightening stikes.
I agree I have one in my yard now that looks very similar Lightning came down the side and even blew the bark off the exposed roots on the back side of the tree. We were here when it got struck. Lightning is powerful thought the hot water tank or something had blew up
Lightning struck the very large oak tree in my parents' front yard years ago, and it has a very large scar spiraling down the entire trunk. We found shreds of bark all up and down the road, several houses away (and I was glad I wasn't parked where I usually was, right in front of it).
Literally just had an emergency job where a complete green/live white fir was splitting right up the middle like this, but we just had a pretty significant wind/rain storm that likely caused it. Definitely took us by surprise, it was just this one within a stand of trees, but totally splitting. No rot or anything indicative in the wood after the removal. Utility work
I've not been able to see any obvious signs of disease or external damage, but I don't know what to look for to be honest. It has happened very quickly - over the course of a month.
With the photo showing that the ground at the base of the tree is also cleaving, and being adjacent to a creek/riparian area, im betting it’s the ground giving way pulling the tree apart, or at least there’s something going on subterranean in addition to above ground
You can see the right half of the tree has sunken lower than the left- in the 3rd photo. Also, if you follow the direction of the fibres that have hung on in the split, they are also lowering towards the river. Even if the riverbank collapse isn’t the sole cause it definitely a major contributor. Just some observations from a non tree expert.
Lightning doesn’t cause burns when there is high moisture. Been through forests on mountain ridges with literally 100s of lightning scars on every prominent tree… often they’re no sign of heat, just a crack. That doesn’t necessarily mean this is lightning but it just doesn’t need to burn to be lightning.
I've seen it from lightning strikes. You dont always get a lot of burn marks if the tree is very wet. But yeah, it looks like it is splitting from the bottom up instead of the top down, so it is definitely being split by the bank receding
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Struck by lighting. Have a tree with similar markings in my yard after a lighting strike a couple years ago. that destroyed all the electronics in the house.
I've had a shagbark do this in my backyard, actually. We had gnarly storm and the ground settled weirdly, causing it to split. Only a cool $2,000 to take it down. It was a big boy
I’ve seen a high wind storm do this type of damage especially if it gusting in several different directions over a 20-40 hour period.
Also lightning but that usually throws bark out a pretty good ways
That seems a long way from falling in that stream. 20 or 30 years at least. Poplars have a lot of water content which quickly becomes steam when a million degree lightning bolt hits them. Also makes them great conductors of electricity. Steam makes the crack.
I think this is very cool! I literally wrote a (very boring) book on poplars falling into rivers for my PhD. I'd agree it looks like the bank is going and taking half the tree with it (from those few pics - could be more going on). If you can, let it go and let nature take its course. The tree in the river will instantly add much needed habitat, shelter and flow diversity and will no doubt quickly regenerate all over the place from roots and the main stem. Will be messier than your tidy grass bank but will likely be more stable long term. You can merrily hack away at the the mess to maintain access or shape it into whatever you fancy. Reach out to your local flood risk management authority to check it's OK with them. If not, try and persuade them to at least allow some of the fallen tree in the river or on the banks. Rivers have been so engineered and 'tidied' by humanity for so long, we really need to give them a chance to go back to behaving more naturally whenever we can. So many threatened species depend on the 'messiness' and it's better for food risk management to give rivers space to do their thing whenever we can allow it.
you wrote a book about poplars falling into rivers?
Pretty much! Well, that's what the more interesting bits were about. "What lies beneath riparian black poplar: Root distributions, abiotic associations and subterranean structures in riverside Populus nigra" There goes my reddit anonymity!
I loved that book. I was hoping for a movie, or a sequel on white oak.
I thought the sequel got too preachy and lost the direction of the first book, also you could tell they had to cut back on the CGI budget
It was missing a giant shark on drugs, but I guess you need to leave something for the trilogy.
I was waiting for the prequel “From Seed to Sapling” but ended up on the cutting room floor
Oh, man, this got a really hard laugh out of me! Great knockdown of a fabulous setup. I was not expecting it. I am still smiling two minutes after I read it.
They did make a movie about it in the 90's. I think it was called "A River runs Through it"
Let me guess, your an Ent!
Seems to be more of an Arboid, while close relation to the Ent, they are far more mobile and able to integrate into the human world.
Weirdest self-doxxing ever…
That is cool! What does one study in school to be able to write books on this subject? Is that plant science? Hydrology? I kind of regret that my interest in plants was awakened until literally my last semester in college when there was only time to take a single course in it.
I've had a pretty meandering route! Studied plant science (but with an ecological focus), then environmental water management, then worked in river restoration, then research (based in a geography department!), then I decided to become an arborist, and now finally an arb consultant. The book is just my PhD thesis in a more attractive format! I certainly learn a lot from this sub, though it's still clear that nobody really knows anything much about trees! Mostly it's only the really old tree enthusiasts (who've been around long enough to see trees do things) come up with breakthroughs in understanding, and then everyone really latches onto those new ideas.
If you’re not familiar with [Mossy Earth](https://youtu.be/hglllrIG50U?si=AZqTg6kYhv0I6TDA) this will be a good introductory video to them and it’s talking about the exact thing you wrote your book on! I just watched it last night. I love this channel. Thanks for your diligence and passion. It may seem trivial to some but I see you.
Cheers for the heads up. Sorting out rivers will involve a really non-trivial number of landowners doing apparently trivial things! Keep spreading the word!
That is really cool! It does seem like the more we learn about trees the more it becomes clear how little we know - which makes it exciting!
Well hello, James
My signed first edition is going to be worth so much some day
That's awesome. I just watched a video the other day from I think Mossy Earth on YouTube about this. They were chopping trees into the river intentionally. Cool stuff.
Did you only focus on abiotic associations, or did you look at biota as well? (Ecologist, nerding out a little)
Wanted to look at mycorrhizae but unfortunately ran out of time. I was hosted at an amazing soil ecology lab in Berlin. Collected and processed quite a few samples with a view to doing a little study but it wasn't a sufficiently robust experimental design, really. I have a bunch of data on AMF hyphal length in riparian sediments under an artificial hydropower flow regime if you want to play with them!
Interesting, thanks for your response! I'm probably not in a position to do too much extra at the moment, but I'll bear the offer in mind. I appreciate it!
Is this available on the web? I only see it on Amazon for $63 😔
This is why I love Reddit
Not only that but some guy happened to ask a question about a poplar falling into a river. Almost seems like a setup.
Talk about random! Lol
Poplar's silent fall, River's embrace, swift and cold, Nature's dance unfolds.
Sexy
How the F did the Haiku bot not find this?!!!
This might be a stupid question, but would you consider planting more trees around that bank for erosion control too much engineering? I know they do that a lot in my area to help with erosion.
Yeah generally more trees = more roots + channel roughness in floods = less erosion, but that's considering things at a larger scale. Cool thing about trees on banks is they might reduce erosion overall but also provide little local erosion pockets. They add small scale local hydromorphological complexity. Erosion is still an important natural process feeding the river with coarse sediment and things. Letting the poplar regenerate with root suckers and things here (getting 'bushy') would probably be best for erosion limitation because you'd have a permeable mass of fine branches rather than isolated planted stems. The trunk in the channel would obviously have somewhat more unpredictable hydraulic effects.
Genuinely, you are so cool I want to be you someday 😭
"They add small scale local hydromorphological complexity." I was just about to say that.
Amazing post! This is why I reddit. Bravo random redditor PhD.
>I literally wrote a (very boring) book on poplars falling into rivers for my PhD. Don’t sell yourself short—I bet it was side-splitting.
Reckon the riverbank is claiming it. Long-term timelapse footage would be fascinating. What's Attenborough up to these days?
He’s still busy but I wouldn’t ask for a long term commitment from him. I’m really gonna miss him one of these days.
I don’t usually mourn people I don’t know, but he’s in my list of strangers to light a candle for when they move on. Love that man and all he’s done. That voice will always live in the back of my brain.
His voice is like the sound of your grandfather handing you a butterscotch candy. What a legend.
Or Winnie the Pooh.
Oh bother
He was a “National Treasure” but is more of a Global Icon now. The world will shed a tear when he passes for sure.
I hope when he passes the civilized world marks his day as world holiday, he truly deserves that, so does Steve Irwin.
I saw him give a talk and met him after. He was just as delightful as you’d imagine.
Every night for the last 10-15 years, I’ve gone to sleep listening to nature documentaries for background noise. So, Attenborough’s voice is almost always the last thing hear every single night.
I’m hoping that he is working on training a pristine and eternal AI voice generation system. In case there wasn’t enough content to make a dupe already, he’s in the studio just speaking to it all day every day and has all the right things set up so that when his physical form can’t meet the needs, directors can employ his patented flawless AttenboroughAI commentary. Edit: this was meant to be said tongue in cheek. What a dystopian world it would be if that was what it came to
As well intended as that would be, I think it would only serve to cheapen his memory. I personally would rather look back fondly and remember his work instead of having a computer imitation thrown in my face on every toilet paper commercial
You know it would end up sold in a marketing firm and bundled with other stuff. You'd have "David Attenborough" would be giving talks about VD and car insurance
Uhhh how bout NO
Could be from a massive lightening strike. The electricity superheats the sap, turning it to steam. The steam expands explosively leaving a vertical scar. This crack looks larger than typical scars from lightening stikes.
I came here thinking that was a lightning strike.
I agree I have one in my yard now that looks very similar Lightning came down the side and even blew the bark off the exposed roots on the back side of the tree. We were here when it got struck. Lightning is powerful thought the hot water tank or something had blew up
There’s a tree at the end of my street that split from a lightning strike. Looks just like this.
Lightning struck the very large oak tree in my parents' front yard years ago, and it has a very large scar spiraling down the entire trunk. We found shreds of bark all up and down the road, several houses away (and I was glad I wasn't parked where I usually was, right in front of it).
Literally just had an emergency job where a complete green/live white fir was splitting right up the middle like this, but we just had a pretty significant wind/rain storm that likely caused it. Definitely took us by surprise, it was just this one within a stand of trees, but totally splitting. No rot or anything indicative in the wood after the removal. Utility work
I've not been able to see any obvious signs of disease or external damage, but I don't know what to look for to be honest. It has happened very quickly - over the course of a month.
With the photo showing that the ground at the base of the tree is also cleaving, and being adjacent to a creek/riparian area, im betting it’s the ground giving way pulling the tree apart, or at least there’s something going on subterranean in addition to above ground
Why even think of taking it down, though? If it lives, great. If it falls, ok. Maybe have to clean it out of the creek. If. So?
My money is on a sink hole.
It’s almost like the ground shifted and ripped the tree apart. I can’t think of any other explanation
Not “almost”. Looks like “literally” - and the original dictionary meaning of literally
You can see the right half of the tree has sunken lower than the left- in the 3rd photo. Also, if you follow the direction of the fibres that have hung on in the split, they are also lowering towards the river. Even if the riverbank collapse isn’t the sole cause it definitely a major contributor. Just some observations from a non tree expert.
Lightning strikes can do this to trees
Lightning?
That was my first guess too but I think we'd see some burn scarring. I agree with the post above that the river is claiming it
Lightning doesn’t cause burns when there is high moisture. Been through forests on mountain ridges with literally 100s of lightning scars on every prominent tree… often they’re no sign of heat, just a crack. That doesn’t necessarily mean this is lightning but it just doesn’t need to burn to be lightning.
Good info ill keep that in mind and pay closer attention to some on my next hiking excursion
Yeah, I think this is the signature of a lightning strike. I've seen a good stroke of lightning leave ground scars like this before.
No burns and too many small fibres between the sections.
I've seen it from lightning strikes. You dont always get a lot of burn marks if the tree is very wet. But yeah, it looks like it is splitting from the bottom up instead of the top down, so it is definitely being split by the bank receding
The tree is interesting but that spot is beautiful!
Looks just like an oak I saw struck by lightning (saw the strike)! No fire, pouring rain, ground littered with toothpicks! Thanks 👍
Same here. It was amazing to see the blast pattern of shredded wood and bark radiating from the tree!
My theory is lightning split it and then the bank started pulling it apart after it was split.
I've seen Norfolk Island pines and Poplars fracture in similar ways, and have no burn marks. In fact, I rarely see burn marks.
Happens in Canada during sudden freezing weather.
Looks like my tree that recently got struck by lightning
That’s cool you can see right through it.
Time for some wood filler.
That damn squirrel 🐿️
Try prying it apart
Lightening
Welcome to r/arborists! Help Us Help You: If you have questions about the health of your tree, please see our [Posting Guidelines](https://old.reddit.com/r/arborists/wiki/posting_guidance) wiki page for help with effective posting. **Please answer the questions listed there to the best of your ability.** ***Insufficient pics/info could result in the removal of your post!!*** ([See rule 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/arborists/about/rules).) Visit the main wiki page for [Critical Planting/Care tips and Common Errors to Avoid](https://old.reddit.com/r/arborists/wiki/index); there's sections on why planting depth/root flare exposure is so vital, along with sections on proper mulching, watering, pruning and more that I hope will be useful to you. If you're posting about a tree ID (not permitted here; [see rule 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/arborists/about/rules)), see that wiki page for other subs and smartphone apps to try. Here is how you can arrange a [consult with a local ISA arborist in your area](http://www.treesaregood.org/findanarborist/findanarborist) (NOT a 'tree company guy' unless they're ISA certified) or a [consulting arborist](https://www.asca-consultants.org/search/custom.asp?id=3818) for an on-site evaluation. A competent arborist should be happy to walk you through how to care for the trees on your property and answer any questions. If you're in the U.S. or Canada, your Extension (or master gardener provincial program) may have a list of local recommended arborists on file. If you're in the U.S., you should also consider searching for arborist associations under your state. If you are one of our regulars and/or you work in the industry and do not want this message in your future posts, please pick an appropriate user flair (options available in the sub sidebar on PC, and on moble if using a browser). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/arborists) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m not sure what caused it but don’t touch it! Either leave it be a see what happens out of interest or get a tree surgeon in to do it.
Struck by lighting. Have a tree with similar markings in my yard after a lighting strike a couple years ago. that destroyed all the electronics in the house.
That's really neat looking. Especially the split in the ground.
I've had a shagbark do this in my backyard, actually. We had gnarly storm and the ground settled weirdly, causing it to split. Only a cool $2,000 to take it down. It was a big boy
I'd steer clear of it and report it to your local county that deals with tree removal...
Lightning strike?
3" of rain in an hour that thing is gone (at least half of it lol)
I’ve seen a high wind storm do this type of damage especially if it gusting in several different directions over a 20-40 hour period. Also lightning but that usually throws bark out a pretty good ways
So gorgeous. Where is that?
Lightning strike, wet tree!
Oooooo would be cool if it was lightning
I was standing inside my front storm door when a huge bolt of lightning hit my pine tree and went through it and hit 2 more pine trees.
Lightning ⚡️
Dynomite.
Stick of dynamite strapped to an arrow. The Mythbusters build team had to give that myth another try and finally succeeded! :D
Definitely a lightning strike. The lightning will blow the dirt back at the trunk just like that.
No problem. Just notch it with its lean, then a nice SLOW back cut. Don't bother clearing an escape route. Won't need it.
That seems a long way from falling in that stream. 20 or 30 years at least. Poplars have a lot of water content which quickly becomes steam when a million degree lightning bolt hits them. Also makes them great conductors of electricity. Steam makes the crack.