Arborist Steve Nimz shares findings on Lahaina's beloved Banyan Tree -- and if it can survive fire

there is nothing that symbolizes the town of Lahaina more than the iconic Banyan Tree which is stood in front of the courthouse for 150 years for some it has come to stand for the city's resilience but after being charred by the wildfires will it survive to help answer that question I'm now joined by Steve Nims considered by many to be the state's top arborist Steve thank you so much for joining us now you were in Lahaina over the weekend examining the tree so will it survive I was I was lucky enough to be able to go over and take a look at the tree with the help of a lot of people so yes we we assess the tree the tree has the main trunk and then it has actually 35 or more aerial roots that come down so what I did was I inspected all the aerial Roots I checked underneath the bark to see if there's live tissue so the main thing is to find out there's live tissue under the tree checking light tissue we found that on every of the aerial roots of the main trunk there was life tissue on all the on all the branches so that on all the main trunks so that was a good indication uh there was sap coming out but it was very low which is not normal normally these trees have a very profuse amount of sap so the sound low is low but the the tissue was live we went up into the upper canopy with an aerial lift and we had help from companies called Prometheus construction they Supply the aerial lift and Supply people to put tree protection around the tree and then we also had help from Goodfellow who's who's watering the right now to bring in their big water trucks and cannons to rehydrate the tree so up in up in the canopy of the tree the leaves and fruit are still on the tree but they're not burned off but they are dead including a small little Twigs but where the Twigs are attached to onto branches three to eight inches in diameter testing those we have live tissue under those so that's a good sign low flow of sap but but the tissue is live so that indicates that the trees still alive but in a I don't know if we can relate it to a person that's in a coma it's kind of just holding there and and and uh waiting to see what what happens next so the thing that we've done of course is we're watering it and monitoring water we've taken soil samples we're taking water samples we're we're going to be aerating the soil to break up the compaction we're going to be adding a compost tea micronutrient mix to help stimulate new root growth so we'll be adding that to the through the top of the soil watering that in and then we're going to be putting a layer of of compost on our Mulch on top of that so that will help as a blanket yeah you were mentioning some of the leaves are burnt but you guys decided to leave them there can you explain why what was that sorry you some of the tree the leaves are burnt you were explaining to me earlier and and we're I've decided at this time that we want to leave the leaves and the fruit on the tree even though they're dead what they do is they act as like a umbrella or or reducing the amount of sun that comes down through the tree that can actually burn the branches similar to if you work in an office all day long and you go out on a weekend and don't put on any sunscreen and go to the beach you're going to get burnt same thing that happens to trees they're used to having that shade canopy over the top of them but if we take all that shade off even though it's dead branches it will allow the sun to penetrate through the branches and burn the top of the branches which will cause problems so that's the reason we're leaving the leaves and the dead branches on at the present time after we get into growth then we'll change that and you describe the bee as being like in a coma how long will it be in a coma how long do you think it'll take before you find out for sure it will survive it's like asking a person for the doctor how long are you how long is the person going to be in a coma I don't know but I guess I'm kind of saying this is that I feel that we should be seeing something happening within the next three to four months or six months but I think the main the main thing we'll be looking for is periodically checking underneath the bark the cambium layer and making sure that the the wood is alive the cambium layer is alive and there is some sap flowing through there and if that continues to to to be that way then it's just like um then a tree is going to tell us we're going to be listening to the tree and when the tree wakes up and all of a sudden we see a few new buds popping out we know that we're doing the right treatment if we test it we see more decline on the tree then we might have to change the treatments so until it talks to us and tells us what's happening then we're going to continue on with the basic treatments that we're doing right now which includes the watering the aerating of the soil the the adding of micronutrients and the putting on about compost layer Source slow release type of fertilizer and keeping the ground moist and keeping the proper moisture in the ground so those are the basic things we're doing there's a lot of other technical things that will be adjusting and testing and working with as we go on but this is our quote-unquote triage okay for the tree that's a good way to put it okay let's start to wrap it up you were telling me though this tree has grown drawn interest from around the world you've been getting emails from everyone we I've got significant calls from from Europe from Asia all through the mainland and they're all concerned about the tree and I I just as I said before the tree is important for me it's important but it's also secondary to the number of people that have died and the tree and all the people that are trying to make a new life for themselves in Lahaina and those are the people that I really care about and everything else myself we got a good team together we're going to do everything we can for the tree I think the most important thing for everybody else is to help as much as they can the people that have been put into this situation that they never asked for so that's where we're at and we'll we'll do that and uh I that's what we'll do and hopefully maybe in three to four months hopefully you can have us back and we can show you the new growth on the tree and we can see the show you the things how it's responding and coming back the way we want it so that's that's where we're at and we'll just have to wait okay thank you so much Steve Nims for the update on the Banyan tree of course everyone is pulling for its survival thank you

Channel: Island News

Views: 454,916

Keywords: localnow

Id: C6jLXRN-nV8

Length: 7min 13sec (433 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2023