To some, it’s well-known that tree rings can tell us about a tree’s age. But we can learn a lot more than just its age; we can understand what the climate was like during certain years. Climate plays a huge role in the health of our landscape, and the rings can show us how the tree’s health fared during specific years and with particular weather.
Below, we’ve listed out how you can count tree rings to find the age, and to look at other aspects on the stump to see what sort of climate it’s dealt with in it’s life.
How to Count Tree Rings
1. Locate the center of a tree stump or cross-section of a tree that has been cut. Find a stump of a tree that was cut down or get a circular piece of a tree from near the bottom. Ensure the tree is cut horizontally so the stump or cross-section is flat.
2. Look for alternating dark-colored rings and light-colored rings in the trunk. The light rings form during the first part of the growing season, and the dark rings form at the end. Each pair of light and dark tree rings adds up to 1 year of growth for the tree. (The light rings typically form in spring and early summer, while the dark rings form in late summer and fall.)
3. Count the dark rings to calculate the age of the tree. Start in the middle of the stump or cross-section of wood and count the first dark ring you see. Continue counting from the middle ring until you reach the last dark ring. The total number of dark rings represents the tree’s age in years. Be careful not to count the bark of the tree as a dark ring. It doesn’t represent a year of growth because the bark gets pushed out as the tree grows. If you need a bit of help, You can use a magnifying glass to help you count the tree rings if they are small and close together.
4. Look for wide, evenly-spaced rings representing years of good weather. The broadest rings on a tree indicate years during which the tree received lots of sunlight and rain. The tree has grown a lot during these years, leading to big rings. Spot narrowly-spaced rings to determine when there were dry years. A narrow ring on a tree’s trunk represents a year when there was not a lot of rain. Clusters of narrow rings indicate several years of drought.
5. Look for burn scars in the rings. Look for black scars within the tree’s rings surrounded by regular wood. These represent years during which a forest fire or perhaps lightning scorched the outside of the tree. Over the years, the tree grows new wood around such scars, but the scars stay forever within its trunk.
