Cloning Redwoods
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- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
- An excerpt from the documentary, "A Life's Work." For more about the film visit alifesworkmovie.... This clip features David Milarch of The Champion Tree Project. Shot in Roy's Redwood Preserve, Marin County, CA.
Watch the A Life's Work trailer. • A Life's Work TRAILER
this just gave me a reason to visit San Francisco
I love your comment! Thanks for taking the time to write
it! If you're not a city person, fly in and head straight north for the redwoods. They are amazing!
@@columbiassw It would be an honor to go one day. I'd love to see those huge trees. Unfortunately the pandemic is keeping us put down here in Mx but as soon as it lifts, I should get my passport, save some cash and head there. Stay Safe and Good Health Y'all!
Many redwood seedlings sprouted in my yard after the fires in my area years ago. I have propagated these seedlings many times and now thee are many more redwoods in my county.
I'm touched to see your far more serious efforts and pleased to see so many videos of so many collection efforts, well done and congratulations for making an significant contribution to restoration.
So glad to see and hear about this...best wishes for success!
Thank you so much! Your comment made my day!
@expertsetup Thanks so much for the comment. It must be amazing to have Redwoods growing in your yard! (I live in NYC, no Redwoods here.) And thank you for spreading them. I think your efforts are just as serious and important, perhaps they don't get as much press, that's all.
Thanks. I'm trying.
Except...where will you grow them?
The National Parks Service points out that once, most of the North American continent was covered with redwoods.
Otherwise, where did the Petrified Forest in ARIZONA come from?
As the earth began to warm since the last Ice Age, there was a perpetual fog bank over much of the continent.
This is important since redwoods drink mostly from their evergreen leaves, not from their root system.
The redwoods aren't (mostly) gone because they were chopped down.
They are approaching extinction because the fog banks have virtually vanished from the continent, except for along the Pacific Northwest coast.
All because of gradual, NATURAL global warming since the last Ice Age.
Finally, what made anyone think that warming cycle was over?
Yes, we are terrible about contributing to the problem, but the earth is STILL warming since the end of the last Ice Age, and nothing we can do is going to stop THAT process.
Meaning, there is nowhere with the right conditions to grow redwoods now.
Redwood's are extremely adaptable to climate change, clones from the same tree exposed to various environmental stimuli's develop completely different characteristics from each other. Cloned redwoods from older trees offer superior adaptation to drought and may contain genetic information that's no longer present in modern day redwood offspring. These clones are 10 years old and counting and have survived the lack of fog as you mentioned and the current drought California is currently facing.
Thanks for your reply. I don't want to sound like a naysayer, as I would prefer to have your positive outlook regarding the redwoods. I moved to Crescent City largely because I wanted to be among them. However, would we even be having this conversation if redwoods were as "highly adaptable" as you claim? Perhaps this process is engineering them to be so. Hopefully. Though I'm also taking your statement about surviving the current drought under advisement, as only yesterday, the news was full of the current reports of millions of trees dying. I also wonder how environmental activists are responding? I mean, isn't this the genetic modification of an organism? Will they stand by this while rejecting any GMO foodstuffs? If so, one wonders (philosophically) why? Best wishes for success!
Gordy Thomas California has had mega-droughts in the past 1000 years, there was a 240 year long and a 180 year one. The giant sequoia redwoods alive today survived much of it without fog.
Fog forms when a warm air mass comes in contact with the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean. Its most dramatic after the tide rolls in the bay. The fog will never go away as long as theres an ocean and a tide change. The fog has indeed created a safe haven for Redwoods and they have adapted quite comfortably at capturing the mist in its leaves.
We've known since the 1970s that Redwoods can adapt for other zones, giant sequoias have been grown in the northeast and survived deadly blizzards...weeks of below 0 temperatures. France and New Zealand have been growing them profusely for 30 years now.
The cloning of the oldest trees is the most adaptable in terms of drought tolerance. However, many other characteristics "adaptations" are being studied from the old as they have had to endure every known environmental problem to occur the past 10,000 years. There is no GMO stuff going on per say. Selective breeding, and hybridization is being done to narrow down desirable traits such as growth speed, ability to grow up a steep hill, pest resistance, grow in salty sandy soil, drought tolerance, less wood development "its easier to clone non woody redwoods"
Why does all of this matter?
The west coast is losing the war over desertification, a 100 year drought would only exasperate the condition and expand the inland areas effected. A massive reforestation effort with a carefully selected breed of Redwood could completely reverse the trends. We could first populate all coastal lands within 200 miles of the ocean breeze. As trees grow they can begin to trap fog and convert ocean breeze to usable water, that water in time would slowly be released back into the sea as fresh waterfalls. The trees would prevent landslides from occurring as well. This water could be collected, purified and used for inland areas. California could solve a 100 year drought simply by planting trees.
environmental activists?
Tree reforestation or desertification? I believe they would choose the lesser of the two evils...
Really Guy Fawkes , the main reason I have trouble with your otherwise wonderful video and your honorable work is that it all begins with a false premise: that we've lost the redwoods due to logging.
I will grant you this: in the areas where redwoods continue to thrive, OR, in areas where they would be surviving if they hadn't been logged away, then yes, I can see where some could be restored.
For a time, at least.
I'm simply saying that the entire continent was once covered with these trees (according to the US National Park Service ranger) and we need to be telling the whole story: that natural global warming since the last ice age first caused them to proliferate, and then gradually caused much of their demise (again, I mention the petrified forest in Arizona).
AND, there is no reason to believe that we have seen the end of that natural warming cycle, leaving aside any contribution humanity is making to the process.
So may you be successful. It would be a great thing to leave for future generations.
It would also be good if future generations are aware that nothing lasts forever. The same trees you describe as "immortal" in your video are essentially the same as those which were petrified long ago.
No matter what you do now, their is a reasonable chance that the natural cycles of the earth will reverse your work.
Gordy Thomas This is a philosophical brain exercise concerning what could be and couldn't. Both of us know the cold hard truth, there are ways to avoid foreseeable disasters and those ways are not being exercised, nor will anything I said be done to prevent any foreseeable event. The western states have no Plan in place to deal with global warming, drought, crop or tree deaths. We simply get to watch as the world around us dries up, our food supply shrinks, and our air becomes unbreathable. We can only hope a mini ice age comes to buy us more time.
The truth is we have a small chance now to intervene ourselves and give it the best we've got, but like you said it may only last a short while. China has improved their situation by planting trees, if it works for them, isn't it worth the effort to see if it works for us?