Black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia), with thick canopy covered with white flowers during the flowering season and bean like seeds, is very similar to Millettia pinnata. The thick canopy of M.pinnata (we used to call it Pongammia pinnata or Karanj in India) indicated that the solar radiation passes across the leaves down many layers. So some non-visible spectrum of the solar radiation should even be reaching the shaded ground where the visible spectrum may not. My guess is that M.pinnata passes the infra red (ir) spectrum in the solar radiation by absorption, photosynthesis, temperature rise, and emission, all four on ir spectrum. M.pinnata seeds can germinate and grow in shade; even grasses that normally do not grow in shade have been seen to grow below M.pinnata . I could not locate any research on the spectral absorption, photosynthesis and emission of M.pinnata. Have you researched on the spectral behaviour of R. Pseudoacacia please?
Mr. Kumar, I'm sorry for the delay in this response. No, I do not know of research we've done with regard to the spectral behavior of R. pseudoacacia. Thank you for your interest and this question.
"Not a lot of difference in functionality between the arborshield and fixed-knot." Black locust chart shows 1 death with arborshield and 3 deaths with fixed-knot. Oak chart shows 1 death with arborshield and 5 deaths with fixed-knot. Sounds pretty statistically significant to me.
The issue of tree alive vs. missing/dead carries more variables than we collected or reported. For example, I did some herbicide control and believe some tree mortality resulted from unfortunate overspray. There are likely other random errors/factors at play as well with tree status. Tree protection, however, has fewer variables at play and more clearly gets to the point of this study. Other than percentages, I don’t think we ran more sophisticated statistics and, while I’m not a statistician, I am dubious that we have a large enough population to determine “statistical significance”.
@@adamdowning3863 Thanks for the response. So, it is your sense that cattle were not the cause of death of the trees in the fixed-knot protectors? I agree that the amount of trees with protectors in the study is not really enough to prove the effectiveness of any given protector. One other variable in a study could be mineral deficiencies/hunger in the cattle, which might motivate them more to target the trees. Also, favorable bands of soil where some trees were planted vs. others in less favorable soil. Microclimate position, etc. Yes, there are so many variables when it comes to trees. Really just trying to make an informed decision for our situation where we have planted 11,000 trees on 10 hectares. We need protectors that are easy to move from one rotational grazing cell to the next. Are the fixed-knot easier to pick up and move than the arborshield? Also, do you have a link to that brand of protector? Couldn't find it online. I sent you an email. Not sure if you got it. Are you aware of any other studies similar to the one you did here with VA Extension?
