Assessing the impact of moon phase on the cutting of lapsed beech pollards

ABSTRACT

The charcoal makers in Navarra, Spain place great store in the importance of pruning trees in the correct moon phase. According to them, beech trees should be cut in a waxing/growing moon. A small group of lapsed beech pollards were cut back close to the bolling in either a waxing (con luna) or waning (sin luna) moon. Growth responses of the trees were studied after four and six growing seasons. Significant differences were found between the growth of trees in each treatment with, for example, branches on sin luna trees producing more new shoots, more clusters of shoots, having longer new shoots on retained branches and more callus. However, a difference between trees in each treatment was also found, with sin luna trees having significantly larger cut branch diameters. Larger stub diameters also resulted in fewer new shoots, shorter new shoots and greater amounts of dieback which makes interpretation of the results difficult in relation to moon phase.

KEYWORDS:

• Beech
• moon phase
• lapsed pollards

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Trepalari for cutting the trees in the different moon phases to make this study possible and to the Diputacion de Álava and Ayuntamiento de Gopegui for allowing the trees to be used for the work. We are grateful to Jill Butler and Ted Green for helping with the recording in 2012 and Gonzalo Lope for helping with the recording in 2014. We have benefitted greatly from many discussions with Jose Miguel Elosegui about pollarding in relation to moon phases and we are grateful to Vikki Bengtsson, Miguel Bariola and David Lonsdale for advice during the project. We are also grateful to Luke Steer for comments on the manuscript and David Lonsdale for his help locating literature relating to ripewood in beech.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen Read

Helen Read is Conservation Officer for the City of London at Burnham Beeches and also works for the Ancient Tree Forum. She has an interest in veteran trees and pollards, especially beech.

Samuel Álvarez Rubio

Samuel Álvarez Rubio is an arborist from the Doctorarbol team and is a specialist in the conservation of ancient, veteran and special trees as well as pollards.

C.P. Wheater

C.P. Wheater is Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is particularly interested in human impacted environmental systems and the techniques associated with monitoring and managing these.

Álvaro Sicilia Garcia

Álvaro Sicilia Garcia is an arborist, translator and interpreter between English and Spanish. At the moment he runs a permaculture farm project in Uruguay.