Sometimes, when you are very still on a walk in the forest and listen to the wind blowing through the treetops, the branches cracking or raindrops splashing on the leaves, you might think that they said something, the oaks, beeches and spruces. It’s imagination, of course. Even the die-hard Tolkien fan, who likes to dream his way into the Shire and perhaps even longs to meet the talking tree creatures called Ents from Lord of the Rings in the forest, doesn’t really expect trees to have a message. But maybe they have. The Kirchheim community now wants to know.
Just suppose trees can talk. What would they say? Presumably they would complain about the drought and the heat, they would complain about the stress with the bark beetle and articulate their fear of the Asian longhorn beetle and possible deforestation. Who knows if they think it’s okay that some dog keeps coming by who thinks he has to mark his territory here, of all places?
In Kirchheim, as the organizer of the State Garden Show 2024, they are also interested in better understanding the plants. It is clear that it is not enough to hug trees to make them feel good. So the Kirchheim-based company is now approaching the matter scientifically and is letting a start-up hit the branches that promises to make trees speak with the knowledge and processes from medical technology. “Making trees talk” is the slogan of the young company Treesense, which was founded in September from the Heinz Nixdorf Chair for Biomedical Electronics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University of Munich. “Treesense” carried out an initial research project with the municipal tree nursery in Munich.
Now the scientists Giancarlo Foderà, Semir Babajić, Julius Kübler and Moritz Spielvogel can of course neither hear the grass growing nor interpret the sound of the forests. Rather, they measure the water balance of trees with a specially developed sensor and can thus draw conclusions about their general health. If, for example, drought affects the tree, the data can detect this at an early stage, according to the plan.
“With the collected data the farmer, arborist or forester can optimize the care of the tree in order to improve the respective results”, promises Treesense on its website. Because once the drought stress has progressed too far, a tree will suffer irreversible damage and can no longer be restored to its originally healthy state even through external aid measures, Kirchheim 2024 GmbH quoted the scientists in a statement.
The municipality and the State Garden Show Society have now become cooperation partners of Treesense as part of the “Smart City Project”. Because the start-up needs as much data as possible from as many trees as possible. Last Friday, the first sensors were installed at a total of ten different locations in Kirchheim. For this purpose, the palm-sized devices were attached to the branches with two screws, which are also used as electrodes. The sensor measures how the current flows or how high or low the electrical resistance is. Since water conducts electricity very well, whereas wood does not conduct electricity very well, it is possible to determine how much water a tree has. In addition, solar radiation and temperature are measured every 15 minutes. Treesense monitoring takes six to ten months.
What is special about the Kirchheim project: Trees that were moved from the Kirchheim Oval to the future local park a year ago and provided with growing aids are also checked. With the tree whisperers from Treesense, the community now wants to find out what the eight lime trees, seven ash trees, two cherries and the hornbeam really think of their new location.