We all know about fungi. But what you might not know about is fungus growing on trees. Fungi are not always dangerous to trees, despite what many folks want to believe. In fact, their relationship to trees can be quite the total opposite of harmful.
A Covertly Helpful Relationship
This isn’t a one-sided relationship. Fungi and trees benefit from each other. The fungus on a tree helps to enable the uptake of nutrients that aren’t usually as easily accessible to the tree as other nutrients could be. Arrange a tree inspection with a certified arborist from Rochester Tree Care to get a true assessment of your tree’s health and nutrient level.
A few of these nutrients are phosphates and nitrogen which are both very crucial to the tree. Also, the fungus safeguards the roots of a tree from parasites that are found in the soil where a tree is growing.
To further show how beneficial this relationship is to both, here is a statistic for you. Over 80% of all tree are dependent on these sorts of symbiotic relationships, like with fungi, for their growth.
So Happy Together
Trees and fungi don’t detest each other. Trees flourish much better when certain, specialized microorganisms are in their root systems. These microbes can be a fungus. For example, when the Laccaria bicolor fungus is present, the tree thrives better than without it.
Fungi Help with Climate Change
Climate change is a subject that is frequently in the news and hotly argued. Though, science continues to upholds its existence, it’s researched that fungi can help observe its presence.
Since both genomes exists, researchers can detect how both the fungus and the tree work together and respond to stress. This pressure includes climate factors like drought and extreme temps, two things that usually result from climate change.
Because of this knowledge, researchers have wished that all this information put together will at some point lead to concrete applications in which both fungi and trees can be used to further protect and benefit this earth.
Rochester Tree Service wants to help you care for the trees on your property. Trees are valuable resources and we want to provide interesting information to you!