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                Welcome to our Experiment Diary page where you
             can get the latest updates on our tree sap experiment!    


      Birch Tree Blog                                        day 2
      Day 1: 28th January 2009
      We are tapping three different Birches; Birch 1 and 2 are of similar sizes
       and are on regular mineral soil, where as Birch 3 is on peat (bog) soil. Birch 3
       is also a lot smaller than 1 & 2 because Birches in peat soil just don't grow
       as large as ones on regular soil.

       We have also decided to put two tapping jugs out of birch 1, with each hole
       on opposite sides of the trunk. This is an example of how you can have
       smaller side-experiments within a big experiment. The purpose of this 'mini'
       experiment is to see if when the sap rises would it mostly all be drawn towards
       the tapping hole or if it rises evenly throughout the tree regardless of how
       many holes there is. We will go into more detail about this when the times comes.    

 

 
    
           Silver Birch Tree

      
                Birch Leaf

 

 
           
                 Diagram 1.                             Diagram 2.                           Diagram 3.

       We don't expect the Beech trees to start their sap rising until about the 3rd
       week in February. However something strange happened when we drilled
       into the cambium of the first Birch tree, sap started to pour out straight away!
       The same thing happened when we drilled the 2nd and 3rd Birches, although
       the Birch on the peat soil 'bled' less, possibly because it is smaller.

       At first we thought that we had completely missed the Rising Day for the
       Birches, which would have been a bad start to the whole experiment.
       However Dick Warner suggested that some types of tree might not draw
       their sap all the way down to their roots, leaving some sap up around the
       lower part of the trunk. If this were true we would have a certain amount
       of sap drain into out jugs until the level of sap in the tree became lower
       than the height of the drill hole, as shown figures 1, 2 & 3 below.

           
                     Fig. 1.                                 Fig. 2                               Fig. 3.


       This draining should happen in a short space of time so we will leave them
       draining for the rest of the day and check them tomorrow. However if the
       Birches are still flowing steadily this probably means that we have missed
       the Birches Rising Day.