I’m contemplating the practicality of digging up the stump of a tree that I recently cut down, and am trying to get a sense of the roots would be like.
The tree is really 3 trees that grew together. Honey locust. Probably about 17 years old. Stood about 30 feet high, and the stumps are probably about 5", 5" and 3" in diameter at about 3.5’ high (which is the point at which I cut them).
My initial thinking was that the roots would probably be contained in the topsoil portion of the ground, so I would dig all around the tree and cut any roots I encountered (with a handsaw). But initial indications are that the roots might be a bit more plentiful and deeper than I had anticipated.
So basically what I’m wondering is whether someone who is knowledgable about trees might be able to give me a sense of what the roots of a tree of that type, size and age might look like, in terms of depth, location (e.g. are there any that go straight down below the trunk) and so on.
[Note to mods: this is in GQ and not IMHO because I’m not asking for advice on whether or how to go about doing this, but rather this is a factual question about tree roots.]
You want to put herbicide on the stumps and give it time to kill all the roots or you’ll be getting sprouts coming up all over.
Thing is that I don’t really care how deep the roots go, as long as they go there far away from the trunk. Because my idea is to cut the roots about a foot or less from the trunk. So if at that point they’re all close to the surface, then I’m OK. But if by that point they’re already deep underground and/or tangled with each other, or worse, if there are roots that go pretty much straight down from the trunk, then my idea is a non-starter.
I’ve actually had sprouts coming up all over for some time. This tree was created from seeds that dropped off of the neighbor’s tree, and apparently several other trees tried to start themselves that same way. But I just kept on mowing them over, and it would seem that they’ve died out by now.
Pretty much by definition a tap root grows straight down from the main trunk. Think carrot. Per Omar Little’s link, honey locusts have a substantial tap root in addition to other shallower branching roots.
Well anyway the answer is that the OP can dig the trunk out. It won’t be too far to get to soft root material. Its not like the monster root ball of a palm - with a palm if you were to try to dig the root below your feet, you’d have a coal mine before you finished. The OP was saying is there likely to be a defined end to the dense packed root ball ?yes.
There is no guarantee of that. Actually this is a good thing for the OP…
If the soil /ground is soft AND there is water down there, the tap root(s) may go straight down.
It/they may go horizontal if they couldn’t go down, or they were desperate for water… The don’t move the root, they promote an auxillary into functioning as the main (tap) root.
This means they don’t grow a monster root ball of auxiliaries, they create a new tap root off to some other place, as the OP was hoping.
I would start about 2 1/2 feet from the tree and start digging a trench about 12" wide, each time you encounter a root cut it off in 2 places to keep your trench open, you won’t have to go all that deep before the tree starts to rock and you get underneath it to cut the tap root. Your trees don’t sound too big so I doubt it will be a real big job.