Hi everyone, welcome back to the Stuff Outside Podcast. This is your host, Kristy Keel-Blackman, with the Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. We have something a little different for you today. We're discussing our Champion Tree Program.
If you have never heard of the Champion Tree Program, it's pretty interesting. And we have some students with us who are helping manage that program. We were joined by Jack Payne and Jacob Chitwood. They were working under Professor Sheer and John Felipe in the Urban Forestry Program.
Jack, why don't you go ahead and tell us what year you are and maybe just a basic overview about the Champion Tree Program? Sure, so I'm Jack. I'm a first-year master student in urban forestry. I'm specifically very passionate about urban food forestry.
The Champion Tree Program was created to recognize and appreciate all of the big trees across the country, but specifically the Tennessee Champion Tree Program recognizes big trees across the state of Tennessee. Awesome, and Jacob, what's your part in the program? I'll do mostly, well, when we go out for measurement, we go out as a team and measure, and I help do county placements of trees and help settle in some data, get some measurements. Great, so if we have any listeners who had never heard of this Champion Tree Program before and they're wondering, well, big trees are really cool, but why do we need a program to actually document them and register them?
What would you guys say? So I would say, first of all, big trees are not just cool, but they do a lot for us in terms of the environment, the ecosystem services. You know, when you look at a tree, you see the stuff that's above ground, but the stuff happening below ground, the roots can spread out two to three times the spread of the crown, all the leaves and stuff that you see up top. So we measured some trees that had 100-foot crown spreads.
So you think of all the soil those roots are reaching. It's gonna pump that water out of the soil, which is gonna increase the soil penetration of the rainfall, and that can mitigate the effects of flooding. That can reduce stormwater runoff. So water quality, air quality, there was a study done.
If you're comparing two trees, one is smaller than seven inches in diameter, and the second one is larger than 76 inches in diameter, that larger tree will remove 70 times more air pollution from the environment than that small tree will. And that's just because there's so many more leaves and so much more leaf surface area to process stuff. So you've got water, you've got air, you've got just the beauty and aesthetics of it. Oh, and the big thing, carbon sequestration.
So about half of a tree's dry weight is carbon storage. So these big trees are storing so much more carbon than the little trees. And it's important that we protect and preserve them and keep them healthy because once they die, that carbon is gonna go somewhere. And it's probably gonna end up back in the environment and back in the air.
So the longer we can keep these big trees alive and healthy and protected, the longer that carbon will be sequestered out of the environment. And the better it is for everybody, all of the secondary effects that cascade from the water and air quality, it's so beneficial for human and wildlife health. That's another aspect too, wildlife, habitat, and feeding. Big tree produces a lot more shelter and food for animals.
There are just so many benefits to having a big tree. And the champion tree program does a lot to raise awareness of these big trees. It doesn't confer any special protections on the tree. It's kind of up to people to recognize the big trees in their community and do what they can to protect and preserve them and keep them healthy.
Another thing I would say, there are some public uses for trees like shade quality and stuff like that. If say they don't want to use harmful materials, man-made materials to make shade areas, if they have the ability they can use natural resources to do so such as trees that provide natural shade and other beneficial things to the community. That's excellent. You know, we see trees every day.
We don't think about all of the really important jobs that trees are doing simultaneously while we're going around for a busy day. So thank you both for reminding us about the importance of trees and everything that they do. So if anyone is interested, the champion tree website is championtree.tenacy.edu. So that's where you can get more information about what we're talking about.
But Jack and Jacob, let's say someone goes to the website and they read about it and they say, oh, I have a really, really large tree in my backyard. I would like to nominate it to become a champion tree. What would be the first step in doing that? So first step is to head to that website.
And there'll be a spot on that homepage that talks about nominations. When nominations are open, they'll open back up again in September, you'll be able to fill out a little form and it'll have some information about you as a nominator and some information about the tree and where is it and how can we find it? And you'll fill out that form and that'll put it on our list of nominations. So that next summer, when it's time to go out and measure trees, again, we'll make sure to visit your tree and check it out and get the official measurements for it.
Excellent. So you and Jacob and some of the other team members, do you actually go out and measure the trees yourselves? Yes, yeah, we just got back a couple of weeks ago from a big trip across the state. We measured over 40 trees.
I'm hoping to increase the number of nominations for next year. I think we can do better than 40. Oh my gosh, it was so awesome to just get to travel the state and see some of the trees people have preserved. Some communities have preserved.
Actually, I think some communities being told about the program from outside sources have led communities to make their own programs that relate to trees, such as when we went to Memphis, there was this lovely woman who helped us find all the trees in the Memphis area and she was starting her own program about trees in the Memphis community and was going out and needed some measurements as well. And we share those measurements with her. And I think that's neat that it brings together communities like that. That's a really great success story.
So let's say someone has an extremely large, salt-tooth oak in their front or backyard or somewhere around their property. Jacob, what are you actually going to do to that tree to get the measurements you need? So for the circumference of the tree, we just use a tape and we put it on one end of the tree, circle the tree, and that would be about just hot, us to the tree. There is no harmful thing done to the tree whatsoever.
And then for crown spread and height of the tree, we have a laser measuring device that we just used to stand back and then shoot the base with the laser, shoot the highest point of the tree we see, and then calculate height and crown spread of the tree. No harmful process done. You guys said you just got back from a big road trip across the state, you have all of these measurements, then what happens with all of that data that you collect? So then the trees are assigned point values and they get a quarter point for each foot of crown spread and a point for each foot of height and a point for each inch of circumference.
So we calculate all the points and we compare it to the current champions. If that species has not appeared on the champion list currently, then it is automatically the champion. And otherwise we compare the point totals to see which one has more points and which one is the new champion. And does the program accept only native trees or will it take non-native species as well?
We actually did measure some non-native species on the trip. Actually one of the most interesting non-native species is probably the monkey puzzle tree that we measured as a Brazilian living fossil conifer tree. And the man had two in his yard, two of the three known in the state non-native species. We will still measure it.
As long as it has been nominated and we have information of how to get there and to measure it, we will measure. Wow, okay, monkey puzzle tree. Yes. Okay, I need to Google that.
I have this is a new species to me. It looks so cool. Instead of leaves, it has this weird spikes all over it. Oh, it's just absolutely wild looking.
Looks very like Dr. Seuss, absolutely wild. We accept all of the trees. The National Registry of Champion Trees only accepts native and non-native naturalized species.
So they don't accept ornamentals or hybrids, but I believe that we are currently accepting any trees that anybody wants to nominate. We just love them all. And so I believe you mentioned previously that nominations are currently closed. And so if people want to get in on this champion tree action, they need to start identifying the trees that they want to nominate.
And then the website will start accepting nominations in September, is that correct? That's right. Yes, we're gonna have an event in mid-September, on September 20th to announce the current champions, the new champions that were crowned this year. So definitely keep an eye out for that on our social media platforms around that time, the nominations for the next season will reopen.
Excellent. And you know, it just came to mind today, that the year yesterday is the 50th anniversary of the Lorax. So this is very appropriate that we are speaking about the championship program. Dr.
Seuss will be so proud of us. So if we have listeners who are interested in this program, maybe they don't have a champion tree or a tree that they think would qualify, is there any other way to get involved with the program or with the research? If you're a UT student, we would love to have you on the team. We're always looking for new helpers for a whole host of things.
One of the things we're gonna be doing this year is trying to expand the program in a couple of different dimensions. And one of those dimensions is going to be marketing, reaching out to Arbress and local tree groups and trying to kind of get the word out about champion tree. A lot of the trees that we measured, the property owners had no idea that this program existed. And it was just like a couple of Arbress across the state that really were like, hey, that's a big tree nominated for the program.
So we're definitely trying to get the word out about it. That's probably the best way that somebody could help it. So just kind of spread the word. Talk about the big trees in your community and do what you can't keep them safe and love on them.
So speaking of that, I would love to get both of your thoughts on how we can be better stewards of our trees in general. I do not have any champion trees in my yard, I don't think. But I'd still like to care for them and I'm sure other people as well. So what can we do just on our regular basis So I would say first of all, if you're looking at your tree and you notice that it's got some kind of a problem with it, there's maybe something weird happening with the leaves or with the fruit, my first call would be to the local extension office.
The UT extension program has a lot of awesome, excellently skilled and talented Arbress that would be able to diagnose the problem with your tree and help you take care of your tree specifically because of course all trees have different needs and different requirements. Part of it is just kind of keeping an eye on it and checking on its health just visually. Trees will tell you if something is wrong, they'll show some symptoms. Contact your local extension office if you've got any questions about the trees around your house.
That would be my main suggestion as well. If you're not studied on trees, it would be best to contact somebody who is professionally trained and has studied the health of trees and how to care and maintain the health of trees, that would be my main suggestion. That's a great point. Yeah, we don't necessarily want to try to maintain things if we don't have the proper training.
That could be disastrous. Well, I think that wraps us up for today. I want to thank Jack and Jacob and their fearless leader, Professor Shear and John Felipe for working on this program and helping to spread the word about the importance of big trees. Once again, the website, if you'd like more information is championtree.tenacy.edu and that will give you in-depth information about how the program works and the submission form again will be open in September, 2021.
Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Jacob, for your time and expertise. And to our audience, be sure to join us again. We will talk with more of our very knowledgeable students.
Thanks.