Alberi arrabbiati – Angry Trees

Drought stress calculations from TreeNet (every 10 min.). At values above 2, the tree suffers.

There are three old copper beeches in the Villa dei Cedri park. They were planted before the Gotthard railway tunnel was built. Like all beech trees, they are suffering from the increasing heat and drought. In contrast to other tree species, copper beeches do not react well to a lack of water and are therefore considered daredevils. They grow until the whole system collapses. Discolouration can then be observed in the leaf crown as early as late summer. For this reason, the copper beech will disappear from dry locations in Switzerland, especially Ticino. So it is no wonder that they are not happy with the human response to climate change.

There are instruments, such as the dendrometer, which can be used to measure changes in the trunk radius in the micrometre range. They are used scientifically to observe the well-being of trees. Trees grow almost exclusively at night. If they are unable to grow, this is a sign of drought stress. The TreeNet research network has been monitoring over 700 trees at more than 60 locations in Switzerland since 2011. One of these is now the large copper beech in the Villa dei Cedri park, which is being measured in collaboration with Roman Zweifel from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. Normally, drought stress is measured once a day. For this project, a calculation is carried out for each measurement every 10 minutes.

Together with the author Monica Cantieni, Hemauer/Keller give the beech trees a voice. In five stages of escalation, the mighty copper beech in the museum park expresses itself according to the measured drought stress. The 25 texts are interpreted by actor Roberto Regazzoni.