“In one day, a full-grown oak tree expels 7 tons of water through its leaves.”
Ok I call bullshit on this. I did a quick search and pulled up one link where this is probably quoted from. I can’t understand how this could be possible.
7 Tons is 14000 pounds. The tree maybe ways 2-3 tons total. I did a quick search here and didn’t see a discussion any thoughts on this?
It’s not a completely crazy idea. This seems closer to a best case number (huge huge tree, really hot day, late in the season so there are lots of leaves, soaking wet soil, etc), rather than an everyday average, but it’s not completely in crazy land. Trees do evaporate a lot of water.
What’s going on is that water is evaporating from the leaves, because they need to breathe in carbon dioxide and out oxygen, and water gets out at the same time (just like you lose water just by breathing). A surprising amount of water evaporates, actually. The tree is replacing that water by constantly sucking it out of the ground, using its roots, and then moving that water up to the leaves. Or, short version, the tree is pumping water out of the ground and into the air (this is called evapotranspiration if you want to do research).
Now, if you think about it, how much water can be evaporated doesn’t depend on the mass of the tree, but on how fast it can pump and evaporate water. I mean, a hose doesn’t weigh a whole lot, but I can put a lot of water through it in a day, in fact way more water than the mass of the hose, right?
–Quercus (who modestly thinks he knows something about oak trees)
The USGS agrees that this is a pretty large overestimate:
151,000 liters per year = 413 liters per day = 413 kg per day = 0.45 tons per day.
Still a lot, though.
Wouldn’t that mean that an oak tree growing in a closed environment (say, an office lobby atrium) would require more than 1600 gallons of water a day?
A lot of snaapple facts are bullshit, there is one talking about how i think it said the elephant is the only animal that cannot jump. I would love to see a clam jump or a worm or a snail
Mammal. The only mammal that can’t jump.
I once saw a Snapple fact claiming snails have teeth.
Snails have a tongue ending in a nail file like organ called a radula. To call the abrasive bumps on the radula teeth is utter crap.
How much of the year is a tree dormant? I can’t imagine it transpires much at all in the winter, and really cranks it up during its peak season.
“Real Fact” #486 says:
While chopping onions, hold a piece of bread between your lips to keep your eyes from watering.
So I guess I should stop citing these things in my dissertation?
Totally fair. Lets say it actually only transpires at all over a period of sixty days. For ten months of the year, it lets zero water out.
Even with this ludicrous, unrealistically stringent restriction, you still only get 2.8 tons of water per day, way lower than the 7 tons from Snapple. To get it to 7 tons you have to say that the tree only transpires for three weeks out of the year.