ANONYMOUS. 1985. High saline conditions are tough on trees. Arbor Age 5(8):20-22.
Although salt may not spring immediately to mind when compiling a list of tree enemies, it can be a killer. Trees that are subjected to excess salts, whether those salts are in the soil or on the foliage, will suffer leaf scorch, defoliation, stunted growth, and ultimately, death. Large amounts of sodium chloride are used each winter to deice the roadways. The salt, often mixed with sand or other gritty materials to promote uniform distribution, usually ends up in the soil or on foliage. Fortunately, a saline soil condition is far more easily corrected than other adverse environmental conditions. Since most harmful salts are water soluble, careful applications of water will effectively leach the salts out of the root zones. A general formula suggests that for each foot of medium-texture soil that is being leached, one should apply six inches of water to leach out about half the soluble salts, 12 inches of water to leach out about four-fifths of the soluble salts, and 24 inches of water to leach out about nine-tenths of the soluble salts. One problem that plagued arborists in the past was a tendency to attribute salt-related problems to other factors. However, there is now an increasing awareness within the industry of the damage that excessive salinity can do to trees.
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