Girdling Roots
I would venture to say the portion of your plant that is hidden underground might be more important than above ground. Just like any building structures, a plant is only as good as its “foundation”. What is a plants foundation? Its root system.
I am going to talk about one specific problem that can happen: girdling roots. A girdling root is a root that crosses over the neighboring roots and partially wraps itself around the base of the tree. This is not an ideal situation. The root will eventually grow larger and slowly cut off vital nutrients to the tree. This will be seen in the canopy of the tree either slowly over many years or a rapid decline once the root shuts off the nutrients to the tree. The canopy will die back in areas that correlate with the side of the trunk that is being affected.
Girdling roots can be cut if caught young enough. A lot of times they are hard to diagnose until it is too late. If the root has any substantial size, be careful with cutting it because you can affect not only nutrient uptake to the tree, but also stability of the tree to survive wind and storms.
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