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Daisugi, the 600-year-old Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees
- hprotagonist 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing the technique is widely known. not every coppiced tree can be convinced to grow straight, though.
- Isamu 5y agoI came here to mention coppicing as well. In medieval Europe forests were highly managed or farmed, and this technique produced a steady source of straight poles that were used in various diameters.
- msrenee 5y agoCan you point me towards anyone using pollarding or coppicing to produce lumber? That's not at all what I was taught those techniques are for. It's hard to imagine the resulting shoots getting big enough to make boards out of in a reasonable amount of time.
- theiz 5y agoMainly used for fencing. Either poles, or the fence itself woven from smaller branches.
- bildung 5y agoThink furniture legs, tool handles, spears, bows and arrows, wooden spoons, knives and cups and so on. The bark was of interest for the tannin. The wood was also used for generating charcoal and tar.
- msrenee 5y agoThat makes sense. I knew you could generate wood for fuel in this manner. I think I got my wires crossed and thought I was replying to a comment that suggested it was a form of lumber production. Lumber in my mind, and according to Wikipedia because I had to double check myself, is wood that can be milled into boards, which I couldn't imagine being produced from a pollarded tree.
- ed25519FUUU 5y agoOnce you see coppicing it's one of those things you'll notice everywhere that was cultivated for a long period of time. I'm surprised at how straight the shoots would grow, and farmers were pretty good at managing and multiplying timber using this method.
- hinkley 5y agoI just responded to a sibling pointed out that Rome records pollarding for at least 2100 years, but pollard and coppice are also critical to First Nations crafts in the new world as well. I think the only reason it dates to 100 BC in Rome is due to the limitations of recorded history, not a lack of imagination. I'd place reasonable odds that coppice/pollard are older than the written word. In fact this is probably middle stone age technology. How many decent spears can you make without pollarding? Let alone arrows, which you would need ten times as many of... Since Japan appears to have already had long bows before recorded history, it's probably more accurate to say this particular variant of pollarding in Japan dates back 600 years, and is tuned specifically for creating posts (and beams?) which are defining elements of Japanese architecture. Pollard is great for making spears and staves, good for making fences (up to and including the posts), but not so great for making houses.
- bobthepanda 5y agoAccording to the article it sounds like Japan used these in roofs and rafters, rather than as main structural elements of a building.
- hinkley 5y agoMaybe we’re splitting hairs or I’m using my construction terms wrong, but I would include “roof timbers” loosely under the category of “beams”. Perhaps my sense of scale was off in the pictures, but I could easily see poles that size used for secondary beams.
- msrenee 5y agoI just have never seen a pollarded tree that produced large enough shoots to be called a pole. A pole in my mind is 4-5" in diameter. Everything I can find says pollarded trees were used to produce fuel and small diameter wood for crafts.
- oasisbob 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding is another similar technique, probably most similar to this one. It's an interesting one to discuss with arborists. In North America, there isn't a long history of pollarded trees, so the technique is generally frowned upon since it's essentially "topping", a universally derided pruning method. European arborists who maintain historical trees are more familiar with pollarding, and commonly are asked to explain why they believe their continuance of topping is defensible as a modern or scientific technique in the care of trees.
- hinkley 5y agoPollarding, according to Wikipedia, was first mentioned by a Roman poet 2100 years ago. You could claim sort of convergent evolution, but I find it hard to believe that a 1500 year old Roman cultivation technique was reinvented in Japan almost exactly at the apex of China's naval power. This smells of corporate espionage.
- yorwba 5y agoApex of naval power? In the 16th century? Aren't you forgetting about the Haijin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin Also, how would Chinese naval power help Japanese foresters learn a new technique for pruning trees?
- pvaldes 5y agoships needed masts
- hinkley 5y ago-100 + 1500 = 1400 > Also, how would Chinese naval power help Japanese foresters learn A bit rusty on my Asian history, but cultural exchange between China and Japan has been going on for millennia. Writing, food (rice imported 500 BC), culture, religion. It wasn’t until the mid 1600’s that Japan shut down and did their own thing.
- OJFord 5y agoIt's closer to pollarding isn't it? But even that's more 'let's make the tree bushy at this height' than the 'let's have normal-looking trees above this point as a starting platform' that daisugi seems to be.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago> Done right, the technique can prevent deforestation and result in perfectly round and straight timber It's annoying that this doesn't explain what the hell "done right" means. What does one have to "do right" to get perfectly round and straight timber out of it? Graft the right tree?
- jeffbarr 5y agoThere's more info in the Twitter thread (https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1250287741247426565 https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1250287741247426565). Patience and pruning every two years are key!
- samatman 5y agoAlso (this is easy to miss) the technique is performed only on clones of one mutant Sugi tree (Japanese "cedar", actually more closely related to redwoods but it's its own genus).
- Zababa 5y agoThe twitter thread from which the images came is also worth a read: https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1250287741247426565 https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1250287741247426565
- fireattack 5y agoThe technique is definitely cool, but can it really be called "sustainable"?
- nvr219 5y agoWhy not?
- fireattack 5y agoIt seems to require a lot more effort than traditional lumber and can't really be mass produced. I doubt the output/input ratio (whatever you consider as the input: man-hour, monetary cost, carbon footprint) is any better either. In other words, I think it's more like a luxury, and I won't call luxury items "sustainable".
- wtallis 5y agoThis doesn't seem to be a luxury method of producing general-purpose lumber, but a technique for producing special-purpose lumber. The alternative way to get similar quality lumber would seem to be logging old-growth forests, and in that light this method would certainly appear to be much more sustainable, even if it cannot satisfy all the demand for all kinds of lumber.
- Ensorceled 5y ago> ... It seems ... I doubt ... I think ... So no real evidence. > I won't call luxury items "sustainable" How is wood a "luxury" item. Fruit and nut orchards both require significant man-hour and monetary effort, they would also be considered unsustainable luxuries using these rules.
- 5y ago
- necovek 5y agoI was reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafting too, used for millennia as well.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoThat's the only way many fruit trees can grow because most can't grow from seed. It also allows creating fruit-cocktail trees.
- learn_more 5y agoI always thought some of the vertical branches growing on this mossy Live Oak in Gainesville FL, were like small trees growing out of the moss on the larger, horizontal branches. They look atypical. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.6527082,-82.3339247,3a,45.5y,330.69h,107.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWdrZ2fTuHM5H9sHhAqCBCQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@29.6527082,-82.3339247,3a,45.5y...
- msrenee 5y agoAsked my semi-professional tree dude. He says that the tree was likely heavily stressed 5-10 years ago and that may have forced branch development. May have been a combination of things. Maybe it had a bad season, someone pruned it, maybe something in addition.
- nabla9 5y agoHandy template: <Japanese name for doing something>, ancient Japanese technique/art of <doing something>. For example: Aruku, ancient Japanese technique of moving around. Written as 歩く and literally meaning 'walk' is movement of feet Japanese have perfected over thousands of years.
- vangelis 5y agoNakadashi, the Japanese Art of Fulfilling Others.
- pezezin 5y agoI don't know why you got downvoted, but your comment is spot on. So many Western people have this weird fascination with Japan, like it's some kind of fantasy & cyberpunk wonderland. But when you live here... well, it's just a normal place with normal people, some cool technology (but nowhere like the 80's) and some really outdated practices. Anyway, if you want to have a good laugh, I would recommend you to visit JCJ: https://www.reddit.com/r/japancirclejerk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/japancirclejerk/
- warent 5y agoIt's fascinating!... But am I the only one who finds this actually aesthetically unpleasant?
- samatman 5y agoProbably not, aesthetics being what they are. I, however, quite like it.
- pvaldes 5y agoAgree. Being touched by the image of an elder tree that was left to grow as it wanted without being attacked by silly people is a forbidden pleasure nowadays. There is always a damaged person that needs to cut it in the shape of a ball, or steal the wood, or ruin its health for no reason. Trees subject to this treatment live less years, decay faster and are also a risk for the people because the new replacement branches are prone to disassemble and fall after storms.
- jonplackett 5y agoJapan is just an awesome place. It's one of the only places I've visited where it's a massive culture shock - but unlike other places, where it's usually because they haven't quite got stuff together yet. They have everything just the way they want it, it's just totally different to the west. For example (if you need one aside from trees growing out of other trees) the trash collection trolleys that other countries just see as a horrible dirty thing, in Japan play a happy tune as they go. I miss you Japan. When covid is gone I'll be back. Edit: and I forgot about the talking, singing, massaging toilets!
- Blikkentrekker 5y agoWhat is your native culture, and what other cultures did you visit, if I might ask?
- jonplackett 5y agoI’m in the UK. I’m not exactly a globe trotter but I was thinking of various South American countries, Thailand. I don’t want to put any of those places down. I love visiting almost anywhere. Mexico is amazing too. Japan just stands out as a bit different. Like they’re on a different trajectory somehow.
- idownvoted 5y agoI came to believe that Island nations (of a certain size) can develop such trajectories, as they are more capable to shut out unwanted influences. For me that includes Japan vis-a-vis the world (and Asia), UK vis-a-vis continental Europe and somehow the US vis-a-vis Europe
- failwhaleshark 5y agoI swear Samsung (Korean) appliances took this to a different extreme with washing machines that proudly sing their end-of-cycle song that cannot be turned off without significant hacking. I do wish backup beepers would be banned worldwide and replaced with white noise warnings.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoJapan logged nearly all of its old-growth forests around 1666 (Edo period), and only organized forest management brought it back from the brink of becoming like another Easter Island.
- hbarka 5y agoThe Eastern Island “ecocide” narrative seems to be questionable. In time, it might go the way of the Kon Tiki hypothesis. https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-easter-island-a-sustainable-society-has-been-falsely-blamed-for-its-own-demise-85563 https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-easter-island-a-...
- wobbegongz 5y agoThe problem with that analogy is that the Kon-Tiki hypothesis was proven right last year. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01983-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01983-5
- blahedo 5y agoUh, kind of? It has been shown that there was some contact between the Polynesians and the west coast of South America. The Kon-Tiki hypothesis is usually understood to be something like "the Polynesian islands were populated by a group of indigenous South Americans who drifted there in a boat", which is certainly not exclusively the case (an overall west-to-east migration to populate Polynesia is all but certain and corroborated by evidence across multiple scientific disciplines) and might still not even be partially the case, as the contact could have been Polynesians sailing to South America and back (as the paper's authors acknowledge). Given that we know the Polynesians to have been expert navigators who explored basically the whole Pacific basin over the course of centuries, that explanation for the contact seems more plausible to me than the drifting-from-South-America explanation for the genetic admixtures reported last year; but even if you think otherwise, the hypothesis wasn't really "proven right".
- 5y ago
- imwm 5y agoI wonder if there's any metaphorical value in this phenomenon
- koreanguy 5y agoits called a prune
- nvr219 5y agoThis website gave me a blackout screen whining about my ad blocker and asking me to donate. But turns out the actual story is from a completely different site. Here's the original: https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2020/10/20/daisugi-japanese-forestry-technique/ https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2020/10/20/daisugi-japanese-for... Why is openculture.com whining about my ad block when it's not even their content...
- ajdude 5y agoAt this point I use noscript for everything, and if the site doesn't work I lose all interest in the site. Quora gives an entirely blank white page saying "Please enable Javascript and refresh the page to continue" and I have to use nitter/teddit, but for the most part these blockups at least of things never bother me anymore.
- visarga 5y agoI hand a similar thought. It's just 3 paragraphs and a Twitter link, but the complaint is about the same length.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 29athrowaway 5y agoI do not know about daisugi but I do recommend planting a tree or having a bonsai tree. Trees can offer you many lessons about life and decision making. Sometimes you need to cut a branch to prevent it from completely drying out. And in life, sometimes you need to make decisions like these too.
- danschumann 5y agoThanks I have a new desktop background
- Bayart 5y agoWhy does everything related to Japan has to be framed as exotic, ancient and mystical ? I've got a forest of beech trees behind the house with trees that have been shaped into poles for five or six hundred years. We don't call it the 600-year old French technique of growing sticks. The Japanese aren't some Elves out of The Lord of the Rings with wisdom forgotten by the mortal races of the Earth and a bone-deep sense of aesthetics. They're just people.
- suction 5y agoI have thought the same many times before. One part of the reason why is that Japan, since the Meiji administration, has been actively creating myths about the "unique uniqueness" of Japanese culture, i.e. that Japan is not just unique like all countries and cultures are unique, but "uniquely unique" - beating all other cultures at being unique. Which of course is just an attempt to disguise the idea that Japanese culture is superior to all others to make it more easily digestible. The effort of the Japanese government to project soft power through the "cool Japan" initiative (Anime, Manga, J-Pop, games, etc.) seems to work wonders on Americans, but a little less so on Europeans. There's a great book that puts the hype around "everything Japan" in perspective: "Japan - A Reinterpretation" (ISBN 97806797451120)
- imtringued 5y agoThe obvious problem with nationalism is that everyone is supposed to have their own nation that uniquely suits them, including the people that you are excluding from your own nation. This gets exceptionally contradictory when taken to the extreme. E.g. Nazis trying to build an Aryan state, while simultaneously acquiring "Lebensraum", knowing that they are also acquiring people from other nationalities, which then have to be deported into another nation state whose nationalist people become angry. Of course this came with the twist that Jews are a nationless race and therefore should be incinerated. It's the same thing with the refugee crisis. Nationalists in Lybia deport non-Lybians to Europe who end up as refugees there and then the local nationalists become angry and deport them somewhere else. It's a never ending shell game.
- shakaijin 5y ago
- 271828182846 5y agoIs this a type of grafting or using another biological mechanism? Grafting is particularly famous among cactus growers as you can graft cactusses in pretty much any conceivable combination.
- nmeofthestate 5y ago"Growing trees out of other trees" - this is just growing branches out of trees, right? Bizarre mischaracterisation if so.
- dehrmann 5y agoInteresting idea, and having done some woodworking, I appreciate long boards without many knots, but the article didn't go into any detail about how it's done. "Bonsai techniques on trees" just isn't that descriptive.