Wood Facts A Series Monday

[Dawie]

Beter late than never. Had a very busy day today and was just about to make it an early night when I rememebred I still owe you guys todays wood fact. So here it comes before I hit the sack.
Added some photo's(link) of the caves this tree grows near by.
As I was checking this out I suddenly realized that I must have seen this tree at least twice when I was a kid and still lived in SA, we've been up that way about 6 times on holiday and visited the mentioned caves twice.
David

The tree with the world's greatest recorded root depth is a Wild Fig {Ficus natalensis}, located at Echo Caves, close to the town of Ohrigstad, Transvaal, located in South Africa. One of its roots goes down 393 foot 8 3/8 inches.
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=249197
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fifikins/4194902221/in/photostream/

[mrsn]

so how do they measure the root depth?

[Mainewoods]

so how do they measure the root depth?

Whole lotta diggin'!

[chief]

My guess would be a very long tape measure

[Marcellarius]

so how do they measure the root depth?

don't know, I guess you have to ask "the woodworm"  

http://www.woodwormworkshop.webs.com/ (Dawie's website)

[Dawie]

Hi There

so how do they measure the root depth?

don't know, I guess you have to ask "the woodworm"

The woodworm takes a very long piece of cord ties this to top of root and finds his way down the root till he reaches the tip. He then bites of the cord end. Climbs back up while rolling up the cord, once at the top he gives the cord to a human standing there and this human then measures the cord and knows the lenght.

All jokes aside I just looked it up. It's rather a mathimatical thing which I don't completely follow, but here's the link, know there are some math boffins here who might understand the formula used.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p8386741q4132j30/