I live in a dry area.

If I dug (or bored) a deep 10 meter hole and planted a small
sapling at the very bottom and then left it alone:

1/ Would its closer proximity to the water table be of
assistance?

2/ Would it grow (albeit etiolated) upwards towards the
light for the whole 10 meters? And then produce foliage as
normal?

3/ Would the beginning of the root system stay at the 10
meter interface, and would the roots grow downwards to the
degree (depth) as though on the normal surface.

4/ Would the nett effect be to have a plant (tree) in a
desert area with deeper roots than those planted at the
surface?

Please help,

P

On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:29:10 +1100, "Peter Jason"
wrote:
I live in a dry area.


If I dug (or bored) a deep 10 meter hole and planted a small
sapling at the very bottom and then left it alone:

10 meters is probably too deep.

1/ Would its closer proximity to the water table be of
assistance?

Yes.


2/ Would it grow (albeit etiolated) upwards towards the
light for the whole 10 meters? And then produce foliage as
normal?

When a deep hole planting method is used, the sapling is generally
long enough to stick out of the hole.

3/ Would the beginning of the root system stay at the 10
meter interface, and would the roots grow downwards to the
degree (depth) as though on the normal surface.

A lot depends on where the water is. You won't get any surface roots
if there is never any surface water.

4/ Would the nett effect be to have a plant (tree) in a
desert area with deeper roots than those planted at the
surface?

Yes, this method is practiced as part of Permaculture.


Please help,

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Hi. I just found out from Sean that this group still exists. I have
been interested in botany for years. I enjoyed the question. Israel
has probably done the most research on xericulture. They were the
inventors of drip irrigation.
The drawback I see with planting your tree in a hole is that the wind,
and possibly occasional rains, could fill up your hole before the tree
grows surface roots to match. It would only work in a very stable,
relatively windless, climate.
Iris, ak elsewhere as bonsaisr.

hi csd

you are writing of research on xeroculture, perhaps you can help me

what I'm looking for are pioneer plants which can subsist in deserts (e.
g. acacias) and by which one could start some form of re-naturalization
of deserts

I have a friend (farmer) in Sicily who suffers from drying out the soil
and who does not know which plants to set for getting natural mould
(without permanent irrigation)

when I was there I detected a great shrub of wild blackberry, the
remnants of which could form a starting mean for garden mould

cheers kauhl

plants require high composition of water and the level of water in a plant will depend on the amount of water in it's environment which is very difficult to control, using dry weight as a measure of plant growth tends to be more reliable for your gardening.