Trees

Frederick The Monk · 157086. Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:15 am

Q: What do trees make wood from?

Forefeit: Water, nutrients from the soil, soil.

A. The answer is that whilst there's obviously some water from the ground and some nutrients from the soil, by far the majority of a tree's mass comes from the air via photosynthesis in which carbon dioxide is broken down to form oxygen and a bit of water to release the carbon from which the tree is largely made.

Alternatively,
Q - What are trees made from?

A - air.

MatC · 157103. Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:51 am

I'm still a bit puzzled, though ... where does sunlight come into all this?

Also - my fruit trees produce good crops when I mulch them with compost, and not when I don't; so do trees make wood from air, and fruit from the soil?

Flash · 157106. Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:54 am

Maybe it's the smell of the compost that does the good, not the actual ingredients.

Frederick The Monk · 157110. Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:08 am

Sunlight is used in photosynthesis to split carbon dioxide:

6 CO2(gas) + 12 H2O(liquid) + photons ? C6H12O6(aqueous) + 6 O2(gas) + 6 H2O(liquid)

Mulching helps because it puts trace minerals back into the soil that the tree needs, but the tree doesn't make its fruit out of mulch - it makes most of itself out of the C6H12O6 (glucose) it's made by photosynthesis.