There are many reports on the snow damage on mountain slopes where trees are enduring snow creep or glide by bending their trunks close to the ground, but reports are few on flat grounds where trees outside the forest are damaged conspicuously by the weight of heavy snow, in the manner of broken trunks and plucked branches.
We apply a support pile to each young tree in the orchard on the flat ground, and in the following spring we find many of the piles sunken and trunks and branchlets broken by heavy snow sinking. On the same flat ground, however, damage is slight for young trees that were densely planted prior to their transplantation to the forest land in the following spring.
On the basis of the observation and discussion on trees in the heavy snow region, where trees grow with the habit of trunk-bending and adventitious roots forming, we propose the slant planting on the flat ground in order to reduce snow damage. But this slant planting cannot always produce a good result, unless it is combined with dense or mass planting, pruning, and adoption of snow-resistant species or race.
View full abstract