80-YEAR-OLD TREES HACKED BY SCCL FOR ITS OPEN CAST MINES

Botany students of JVR government degree college in Sattupalli who conducted a dendro-chronology study on trees felled for the open cast mine of Singareni Collieries have found that the average age of these trees were of 12 to 80 years.

The students, numbering 32, studied the dendro-chronology of 42 felled trees as part of a macro anatomy exercise. The trees had been felled between Lankapally and Kistaram in Khammam district. They counted the annual growth rings of dead trunks. Each annual ring had dark and light colours. The study exposed the environmental imbalance caused as a result of the tree-felling.

D Rajkumar, second-year B.Sc student, said the dendrochronology method helps find the age of felled trees. This is the science of dating events, environmental change etc by using the characteristic patterns of annual growth rings in timber and tree trunks.

The annual rings of the timber showed the seasonal variations a tree faced in its lifetime. Irregular and closeoverlapping annual rings showed frequency of dry periods, levels of pollution and wounds to trees.

The trees felled for road widening etc included banyan (Ficus), neem (Azadricta), pongamia (Kanuga), cieba, albizzia (Dirasena), nallamaddi, jambul (Nerudu) and shade-giving varieties. The displaced epiphytic plants known for their hanging spongy roots (vanda) that once lived on the branches of these trees were also identified.

Prof. K. Vijay Kumar said the Albizzia tree had the circumference of 3.43 metres and 180 rings. The age of the tree was estimated at above 80 years.