The World Beneath the Trees

I hope all of our Truetimber friends and family had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! My family celebrated at a safe distance outdoors and finally had the opportunity to introduce our daughter to her relatives! During the 1,502.80-mile (yes, the 0.80 mile counts when you’re traveling w/ a 5-month old) road trip, we came across a fascinating podcast that I wanted to share with you. It’s called From Tree to Shining Tree by Radiolab. Give it a listen if you get the chance, but here were some of my takeaways:

An experiment was conducted where different trees were injected with radioactive gas and they tracked the isotopes. Through extensive research they found the following:

• Trees have a highly complex communication network
• The bigger the tree the more complex. One of the trees was connected to 47 other trees!
• Trees maintain mutually beneficial relationships with fungi. Trees give fungi sugar and the fungi give trees minerals.
• Without the fungi, the trees would only grow to the height of a tulip!
• Depending on the ecosystem, trees will give 20-80% of its sugars to the fungi!
• Forests act like one big organism.
• Trees send danger signals to other trees. i.e. If a tree is being attacked by insects, it will warn neighboring trees so they can start producing chemicals that taste bad so the insects won’t eat them.
• When a tree dies, it sends carbon to other trees in its network!

After learning of this incredible communication between the trees, it reminded me of a definition of health that I think works for both trees and humans: “Health is the intensity of how one interacts with its environment.” I can say I feel very healthy as I love interacting with my family, my TrueTimber family, and my extended TrueTimber family (you – the client)!