High Desert Tree Selection Attacks Drought, Pollution, Salt and Toxins

Summary: High desert tree selection appeared last, Dec. 3, in TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension co-sponsored Learn at Lunch webinars for 2019.

Dr. Heidi Kratsch's high desert tree selection survey, presented in the TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension's Dec. 3, 2019, Learn at Lunch webinar, esteems chinkapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii) as a long-lived, low-maintenance, pest-free, salt-tolerant species; chinkapin oak with Tagetes ‘Crackerjack', Ageratum 'Blue Horizon' and Asclepias curassavica ‘Red Butterfly' in Chicago Botanic Garden's English Oak Meadow, Monday, July 25, 2016, 21:06:36: cultivar413, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

High desert tree selection, from Dr. Heidi Kratsch's intermountain arborist survey, assumed the Dec. 3 date as 2019's last topic in TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Learn at Lunch webinars.

Practical Aspects of Tree Selection, formal educational, slide-supported presentation live-broadcast from noon to 1:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, broached high desert tree selection arboriculturally, culturally, environmentally. It considered alkalinity, boron, drought, heat, low relative humidity, poor drainage, salinity, shade and wind tolerances; cold hardiness; disease and insect pest resistance; and native species. It described tree selection for aesthetic value, availability, branch structure, cost, ease of establishment, growth rate, lifespan, maintenance requirements, mature size, minimal debris and seasonal interest.

The 121 participating arborists from the Rocky Mountains westward to the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada excluded from high desert tree selection flammability, invasiveness and suckering.

The University of Nevada Extension survey, supported partly by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) National Institute of Food and Agriculture, fit in client preferences.

The Kratsch survey generated from Reno, Nevada, gathered such tree selection guides as climate change preparedness, municipal street tree lists and right tree, right place guidelines. It headed toward diversity over monocultures, evergreen species over deciduous (from Latin dēciduus, "falling down, falling off") and popular, proven performers over overplanted, provenly problematic species. It included effects of elevation and microclimates, irrigation schedules, power-line clearances, root structure, snow load tolerance, sunscald resistance in heat islands, wildlife resistance and winter interest.

Signaling ash (Fraxinus), elm (Ulmus) and fir (Abies) suffering environmental-stressed, secondary-pest infestations and surveying attendees joined the high desert tree selection webinar's first and second half-hours.

Tree tolerances at or above USDA hardiness and American Horticulture Society (AHS) heat maps' intermountain-zoned upper ranges kindled 41 and 37 percent of webinar attendee recommendations.

Sixteen and 6 percent listed trees tolerant of salty reclaimed or recycled waters and write-ins recommending selection for climate-changed reduced snowpack, rising temperatures and severe droughts. The second half-hour mentioned salt-tolerant black (Robinia pseudoacacia) versus honey (Gleditsia triacanthos) locusts' respective borer, fast-growing and limb-failing versus pod gall midge and spider mite vulnerabilities. It noted pyramid-profiled young, flat-topped mature black (Pinus nigra) and Bosnian (P. heldreichii) pines and drought-tolerant, salt-tolerant, space-nabbing pinyon (P. edulis) and single-leaf pinyon (P. monophylla).

High desert tree selection observes oversized, porcupine-intolerant, salt-tolerant, space-nabbing ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and Cooley spruce gall adelgid- and engraver beetle-intolerant, drought-tolerant blue spruce (Picea pungens).

High desert tree selection presents boron-tolerant, salt-tolerant, tip-burn semi-sensitive bur (Quercus macrocarpa) and, more alkalinity-tolerant than pin oak (Q. palustris), drought-tolerant, salt-tolerant red (Q. rubra) oak.

High desert tree selection queues up drought-tolerant, nipple gall-intolerant, salt-tolerant common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis); messy-fruited northern/western catalpa (Catalpa speciosa); and space-nabbing London planetree (Platanus x acerifolia). It references boron-tolerant, drought-tolerant, salt-tolerant crabapple's (Malus) apple scab-resistant, fireblight-resistant varieties and salt-tolerant Rocky Mountain junipers (Juniperus scopulorum) 10-foot (3.05-meter) reach as a residential fire hazard. It perhaps showcases boron-tolerant, salt-tolerant Kentucky coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus); boron-tolerant, fruit-famous, salt-tolerant, wildlife-friendly, winter-interest hawthorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum); and long-lived, low-maintenance, pest-free, salt-tolerant chinkapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii).

High desert tree selection tends toward AHS-mapped zones 4 through 7's 14- to 30-day and 60- to 90-day temperatures above 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).

Washington hawthorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum) attracts as a boron-tolerant, fruit-famous, salt-tolerant, wildlife-friendly, winter-interest species, according to Dr. Heidi Kratch's presentation on high desert climate tree selection, offered for the TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension's Dec. 3, 2019, Learn at Lunch webinar; Washington hawthorn in Bridgewater Township, Washtenaw County, southeastern Michigan, Oct. 17, 2019, 17:31:08: F.D. Richards, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Dr. Heidi Kratsch's high desert tree selection survey, presented in the TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension's Dec. 3, 2019, Learn at Lunch webinar, esteems chinkapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii) as a long-lived, low-maintenance, pest-free, salt-tolerant species; chinkapin oak with Tagetes ‘Crackerjack', Ageratum 'Blue Horizon' and Asclepias curassavica ‘Red Butterfly' in Chicago Botanic Garden's English Oak Meadow, Monday, July 25, 2016, 21:06:36: cultivar413, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/131880272@N06/28664583862

Washington hawthorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum) attracts as a boron-tolerant, fruit-famous, salt-tolerant, wildlife-friendly, winter-interest species, according to Dr. Heidi Kratch's presentation on high desert climate tree selection, offered for the TREE Fund and Utah State University Forestry Extension's Dec. 3, 2019, Learn at Lunch webinar; Washington hawthorn in Bridgewater Township, Washtenaw County, southeastern Michigan, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, 17:31:08: F.D. Richards, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/50697352@N00/48916204781/

For further information:

Kratsch, Heidi. 3 December 2019. "Practical Aspects of Tree Selection for High Desert Climates." Utah State University Forestry Extension > Webinars > Archived Webinars > 2019.
Available @ https://forestry.usu.edu/webinars/index

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 December 2019. "Urban Trees Advocate for Human and Urban Health and Vice Versa." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/12/urban-trees-advocate-for-human-and.html