The Home Page Network

Chris Firestone, botanist, and ecologist for the DCNR Bureau of Forestry, joins Home Page Vice-President Sara Vogt in the studio to discuss the life of trees in the winter season.

How are the trees thriving during the rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow? Trees to keep from feezing inside will increase their sugar content or adjust the flow of water and nutrients. The inner bark, or “phloem,” is the pipeline through which food is passed to the rest of the tree. This pipeline will regulate the amount they choose to use from all of this moisture coming from the snow. For the tree to be healthy, this balance is maintained.

Trees are increasing their sugar content at this time in our area, which allows maple syrup producers the opportunity to tap the trees.

During this time, the roots of the trees are gathering moisture from all of the winter snow and preparing for the Spring season when they will be budding and blooming.

Chris mentioned that trees offer various benefits, such as trees shade and cool, support wildlife, improve health and well being. Through a process called photosynthesis, a tree’s leaves pull in carbon dioxide and water and use the energy of the sun to convert this into chemical compounds such as sugars that feed the tree. But as a by-product of that chemical reaction oxygen is produced and released by the tree. CO2 makes up only .04% of the earth’s atmosphere but it is an important gas for the building blocks of life.

For more information about the trees in our area, please visit the link below:
https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/about/Pages/Forestry.aspx