Horizontal root spread under soil : 5 posts by 2 authors. Attachments (1)
Please check attached picture.

     Please watch radius(Blue line) which indicate radius of ‘horizontal root spread circle’ under soil. Please inform if there is some equation between root spread, canopy size and
height of the tree.
     I have seen rooted out big mango trees and many other big trees with very small ‘horizontal root spread circle’ , but people are still reluctant to plant big trees because of
fear of root spread.
Suppose we keep trimming adventitious roots of Ficus species, do ficus species has very big root spread under soil?


In the attached image this is misconception that roots do not grow out of canopy area, but in search of water and nutrients plants develop large horizontal roots. There are many examples like Ficus, Oak, Populus, Leucaena, Prosopis etc. where horizontal roots develop 2-3 times or farther. We have Limonia acidissima at our place where horizontal roots have grown more than four times to its canopy spread.
For getting any formula to calculate root spread, canopy and height of tree its difficult, every plant of single species behaves differently with ecological and environmental factors.


Informative!
Limonia acidissima’s fruit pulp chatani is very tasty 😀, thanks to remind.
How to control root growth without damaging tree’s life and balance? Is there some guidance links or books etc?
If we reduce canopy size, will there be adverse effect, like more root growth to compensate loss of branches and leaves?