{"timeline":{"defaultZoomLevel":"0","height":600,"asset":{},"date":[{"asset":{"thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecc8385814c2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":5333,"height":3000},"caption":"The beautiful upright cones of a Balsam Fir","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49942012412_876ccf223a.jpg"},"startDate":"2000","headline":"Seed Collection","text":"

Seed is gathered to propagate new trees or to use as root stock to graft new trees. This involves a lot of preparation. Multiple trips to source seed trees, forecast flower and fruit development, travel to harvest seed, ship to seed bank or nursery for storage, preparation, drying, etc.<\/p>\n","endDate":"2000"},{"asset":{"credit":"Wolfgang Glock \/ CC BY-SA (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0)","media":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/a\/ac\/Belvedere_Gardens_Greenhouse.JPG\/512px-Belvedere_Gardens_Greenhouse.JPG","caption":"An image of the Belvedere Gardens Greenhouse, Ireland"},"startDate":"2001","headline":"Seeds germinate in a nursery.","text":"

Energy is required to heat greenhouse where seed is propagated or rootstock is grafted. Energy output will vary depending upon heat source of the greenhouse.<\/p>\n","endDate":"2001"},{"asset":{"credit":"Brian \/ CC BY-SA (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0)","caption":"A plane flying through the air.","media":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/c\/c3\/Air_Canada_Boeing_777-200LR_Toronto_takeoff.jpg\/512px-Air_Canada_Boeing_777-200LR_Toronto_takeoff.jpg"},"startDate":"2002","endDate":"2003","text":"

Most urban trees sourced from large nursery companies grow and sell trees that have spent their early years growing in a climate such as Oregon on the West Coast of North America where a longer growing season allows them to grow faster and therefore straighter, producing a straight, clean 6 foot (2 metre) trunk more quickly.<\/p>\n","headline":"Global Transport of Whips"},{"asset":{"caption":"Trees growing in a nursery.","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941425156_5622d60b88.jpg"},"text":"

Most urban trees grown for street trees or landscape use are sold as a 50-60mm caliper. Trees grow here for approximately 10 years. During this time annual manual labour is required to prune form, and some carbon emissions may be required depending on nursery practice for weed control and possibly fertilizer and watering.<\/p>\n","headline":"Growing in a nursery","startDate":"2003","endDate":"2013"},{"asset":{"caption":"A tree spade mounted on a skid steer, moving a tree.","thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd33649d808.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":370,"height":519},"media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941994357_7c0347eb60.jpg"},"text":"

The tree is dug and prepared to be shipped. Carbon emissions are emitted to dig the tree using a tree spade. A large deliver truck with a crane often loads a load and hauls the trees, sometimes many hours away to a wholesale nursery or directly to the client.<\/p>\n","headline":"Moving day!","startDate":"2013","endDate":"2013"},{"asset":{"caption":"Moving a large caliper, bare root tree.","thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd340948630.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":3840,"height":2160},"media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941417651_571e01d783.jpg"},"startDate":"2013","text":"

This is not often the last trip the tree takes. This truck usually unloads at a local wholesale nursery, a municipal yard or somewhere the trees can be stored until they are planted. Emissions are emitted by the truck unloading, and then equipment reloading another truck or trailer to move the trees to their final planting location<\/p>\n","headline":"One more trip","endDate":"2013"},{"asset":{"credit":"Nicole Vander Schaaf","caption":"A well planted 50 mm caliper tree","thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd4f005dd4e.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":4608,"height":3456},"media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49940903988_a18e5da093.jpg"},"text":"

Tree is planted in its final planting location. If the hole was machine dug, how it was unloaded and moved to the hole from the truck, hauling away additional debris, hauling in additional soil if needed, making and hauling mulch, all emit more carbon emissions. This process may differ depending upon the scenario.<\/p>\n","headline":"A place called home","startDate":"2013","endDate":"2013"},{"asset":{"credit":""Hand and Garden Hose" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Don & Janet Beasley","caption":"Watering a tree to help it establish is a critical step in the first years after planting.","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/8205\/8198612018_b9934b395d.jpg"},"startDate":"2013","endDate":"2015","text":"

If this tree is in a backyard, less emission output may occur than if these trees are street trees. Some municipal or new development contracts indicate that contractors must water, sometimes up to 2 years on regular intervals over the summer to help in the establishment of trees. This is done with a truck and water tank.<\/p>\n","headline":"Watering"},{"asset":{"thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd366facaab.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":1536,"height":2048},"caption":"A neglected urban tree planting","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941409228_7e475021c6.jpg"},"startDate":"2015","headline":"Establishment","text":"

The tree is finally established and growing well! If we have chosen the right tree for the right site, planted it correctly and provided adequate moisture for it to establish during this stressful move for the tree. If it dies we start again! The tree will provide no real environmental benefit. It will have emitted more carbon in the process of growing it than it ever could capture or mitigate. However if it survives it now will catch up by growing and will first have to recover the carbon emitted to get this tree here before we can really count its benefits.<\/p>\n","endDate":"2015"},{"asset":{"thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd511995cc2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":2248,"height":4000},"caption":"An Apple being pruned using a pole pruner.","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941715537_fc015be814.jpg"},"startDate":"2015","endDate":"2040","text":"

During the next 25 years, to encourage good structure and form the tree will require regular juvenile pruning. Dr. Ed Gilman, retired, from University of Florida concludes it takes the average tree 25 years of pruning at 3-5 year intervals to successfully prune a tree to mature form. A truck and a chipper will need to be taken 5-6 times in the next 25 years in order to accomplish this.<\/p>\n","headline":"Juvenile pruning"},{"asset":{"caption":"A mature roadside maple","thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd5354b4da9.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":3168,"height":4752},"credit":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49940905293_79dae544fc.jpg","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49940905293_79dae544fc.jpg"},"startDate":"2043","headline":"Reaching equilibrium","text":"

The tree has now been in the ground for 30 years. It's diameter at breast height has reached 30cm. Roughly at around this diameter is when the tree finally breaks even in carbon input in exchange for carbon output required to get this tree to this point.<\/p>\n","endDate":"2043"},{"asset":{"credit":""Comfort Maple" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Ray Ordinario","thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd54b036afe.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":500,"height":375},"caption":"An old, mature sugar maple. In this case, a very special heritage tree in Ontario, The Comfort Maple, in Pelham, ON.","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/5599\/15525753388_6a6ee3f114.jpg"},"startDate":"2105","text":"

The tree has now been growing for many years. Because we did our homework a century ago in planting and pruning the tree it has done very well. It has weathered fierce storms. It has withstood drought. Little maintenance was required for this tree after the intense work done decades earlier. For almost a century people have enjoyed the benefits the tree has provided. The tree is now approximately 100 years old but it is providing approximately 10,000 times more environmental benefits than it did when it was first planted. However over the past couple of years it has begun to decline. Some dead tips are beginning to show in the crown. Some decay has started in some pruning cuts where someone has pruned a limb that was too large and the tree was unable to compartmentalize the injury. As a result decay has entered.<\/p>\n","headline":"The tree through maturity","endDate":"2105"},{"asset":{"thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd562f75cc4.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":1224,"height":1632},"caption":"Old maples, risk is higher due to past damage","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941716677_f1d5174fde.jpg"},"startDate":"2115","text":"

Approximately 10 years later. The dead tips have extended to large dead branches in the upper canopy. The cavity has turned into a wonderful burrow for wildlife used by wood ducks and raccoons over the past decade. The tree is alive with wildlife. Funny how a when a tree declines it provides more opportunity for wildlife habitat. The tree is full of character, burls, reaction wood, twists and bends, from withstanding immense environmental factors while standing along in the urban landscape. However now, when the tree is at its peak of benefits, a tree risk assessment concludes that the risk of failure is too high and the tree must be removed. An arborist drove here to give this report in a truck, carbon emitted for one vehicle.<\/p>\n","headline":"Tree decline","endDate":"2115"},{"asset":{"thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd3a4fdf28e.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":1632,"height":1224},"caption":"A tree care crew removes the tree.","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941994312_4ef0635a9c.jpg"},"text":"

A week later an arborist crew comes to remove the tree. Chainsaws, bucket truck, chipper and stump grinder are used. A skid steer and another truck and trailer load the large, 100 cm diameter trunk and limb wood.<\/p>\n","startDate":"2115","headline":"Tree removal","endDate":"2115"},{"asset":{"thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd5876997bf.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":500,"height":375},"caption":"A loader works to move waste in a landfill","credit":""Heavy machinery at the Robin Hood Bay la" (CC BY 2.0) by ColinD13","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/1294\/5178193721_3b5207784b.jpg"},"startDate":"2115","endDate":"2215","headline":"Wood disposal","text":"

The tree is now gone. Over a century of history vanished in one short day. But is this the end of the story? Scenario 1: The tree is sent to a dump to quickly discard the waste wood and chips. The wood is buried in a landfill where it decomposes very slowly, if at all, anaerobically. Over the next century this same wood that sequestered so many emissions will now emit 28 times more methane than it would even if it just layed on a forest floor and decomposed. <\/p>\n"},{"asset":{"caption":"A log, salvaged and milled into lumber instead of discarded as waste","thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd5a54ebfb6.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":4752,"height":3168},"media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49941424326_1a6ec913dd_k.jpg"},"text":"

Scenario 2: Can we change this story? If the wood does not decompose the carbon remains captured. Can we repurpose the wood? Milled lumber stores the trapped carbon and keeps it tied up. Although carbon is emitted by equipment moving the log and milling it, the carbon from the wood is kept out of the landfill, further reducing carbon and emissions. Wood chips used as mulch and limbwood used as firewood also serve a purpose. They may be burned or decompose as mulch but this energy emitted recovers other energy output, reducing the use of fossil fuel emissions. The milled wood has been milled and kiln dried and stored until it is sold. Emissions are emitted to do this and then to move to a wood shop, manufactured and installed. <\/p>\n","headline":"A different outcome: wood salvage","startDate":"2115","endDate":"2117"},{"asset":{"thumbnail":{"path":"images\/thumbnail-5ecd5b7a41c3a.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","copyright":{"license":"U"},"width":2160,"height":3840},"caption":"A beautiful salvaged piece of spalted maple, ready to be built into an hierloom piece or woodworking","media":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/49940905778_7e1a8dd52a.jpg"},"text":"

The wood project not only displays the beauty of the unique wood grain, it is also locally grown, so has not had high output of emissions to haul the wood, and the tree has added a unique story to the project. The carbon captured has an approximate equivalent to half of the green wood weight of the wood.<\/p>\n","headline":"History, carbon captured","startDate":"2120","endDate":"2120"}],"language":"en","headline":"Carbon output during the life of an urban tree from 2000-2120","text":"

Although some details will differ along this timeline, the life of this tree could be considered average, based upon today's current industry best management practices.<\/div>\n"}}

Timeline of carbon output in urban trees

Tom Mikel