Tree Measurements

Hey! So today, we will have little about my tree's measurements and why they are important:

• Height: it is important because we can then determine how much sunlight it recieves, differentiate it from others and, over an extended period of time, measure its growth rate. Here is how I measured my palm:

          I took the height in cm from my perspective about 8 m away, and placed that number over the distance    from my eyeball to the yardstick. To find the answer, I just cross-multiplied. This is what I ended up with:

                                      25 = height of the palm

                                      23         7.83 m

          Therefore, the height was about 8 m. This is a very tall palm, but not all of the trunks have the same                         height. Some trunks have about 1.5 m, while others, such as this, are up to 8m tall.

• A second measurement is "DBH", or "diameter at breast height". With it, we are also able to compare trees and observe how they grow over the years. Since my tree has 8 different trunks, I measured them all:

TREE NUMBER:	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
DBH(cm):	21	22	22.5	22.5	12	14	12.5	11.5

• The next measurement I made was the crown of the tree. A crown is the distance from one side to the other of the tree's largest spot horizontally. The crown also affects how much sunlight the tree will absorb and how much space it ocupies. If a tree is original to a dense forest, it is likely to have a crown less wide than that of a cerrado tree, for example.The crown of my palm was very heterogeneous, so I decided to measure it in three places. My results were 3, 3.5 and 2.5 meters. Averaged up, that gives us a crown that is large but not too much when compared to other trees, especially in this region.
• Then, we were able to use our school's cool new lab devices to measure leaf light absorption. Light absorption means how much light energy the leaf will absorb and how much will pass through it. That is important to know because it affects photosynthesis. The more light a tree absorbs, the more photosynthesis will occur. I measured light absorption in a new leaf, a "middle-aged" leaf, and an old leaf, and here were the results. L1 is for the light occurrence at the time (about 3 PM). L2 is for the light absorption of the leaves.

L1	84857	85231	40550	83947	77085	84187
L2	2145	3048	3577	3921	5139	6721

• The temperature in the soil is also important because of the homeostasis of the plant. It is fundamental to know what enviornmental conditions help it thrive because then we can help it grow. My measurements of the temperature 10 cm down the soil ranged from 28.5 ºC where the sun was shining to 23.8 ºC in the shade.
• Another thing that we must measure is the Ph of the soil. That is an important measurement to make because the Ph determines certain nutrient that will be avaliable in the soil. For example, Nitrogen is only avaliable to plants with a Ph above 5.5. My palm had a soil Ph of 6.61, which means it has avaliability for Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Postassium, Sulfur, Iron, Manganese, Copper, and Zinc, with some Calcium and Magnesium as well. The tree uses these nutrients to nurture itself, maintain healthy and grow.

Hey! Just as a final note, I was surfing around the internet and found a fun game that has to do with trees! In this game you must jump from tree to tree (measuring the distance) and make sure you jump on to a tree that can hold you! This is the time to apply the DBH knowledge you just got! Have fun :)

Jungle Jump Game