What might have happened here?

Before we try to determine what might have happened to this old native pecan, let’s make a list of things we do know for sure.

Here are the facts we do know…
• Neil is not a certified arborist, but he has been working with trees since he was a lad. He also hangs out with some really smart certified arborists and has learned a lot from them in those years.

• This tree was toward the bottom of a slope some 25-35 ft. down from the lower end of the building. It would appear that it was within the grade zone for the building.

• Several other large trees in the nearby forest are also down as of the past couple of months, so this is not unique just to this tree.

Now to the specifics…
• I noticed that there are no large lateral roots coming off the exposed root ball. A pecan of this immense size would be expected to have many roots 10 or 12 inches or larger in diameter. There are no jagged ends where they might have broken. Something has happened to those most major of roots. (As in “they might have rotted.”)

• I didn’t go up to the trunk and examine the soil closely, but it doesn’t look like the heavy, black clay gumbo that is on all the properties in the surrounding neighborhoods. This looks like sandy fill soil or silt.

Now to my guesses…
• I am guessing that either soil eroded down the hill over the years and collected over the root system, thereby gradually suffocating those roots and causing them to decay, or

• That the soil was graded smoothly down the hill as construction wrapped up, and that no regard was paid to the tree’s root system, or

• That the major roots were cut and bulldozed away during construction, then soil was pushed back over the ground so grass could be planted.

It could have been (and probably was) a combination of all the above. Sadly, it happens all the time.

The true fact is that roots are sensitive organs in the life of a tree – even a large old pecan tree.

We need to respect those roots from even before the time construction commences. Hire a certified arborist to stand alongside you as your architect and contractor and all the subsequent subcontractors enter the picture. Don’t let any of them cause harm to your big and beautiful old shade trees. It takes way too long to replace them.