...in the case of 'The Ball Moss is killing my tree!' debate.
Recently, while watching one of Sue Scott's Back Ten Feet videos, someone, an arborist I think, commented that while Spanish Moss does not actively kill a tree, he believed Ball Moss could. His reasoning was that, unlike Spanish Moss, Ball Moss sets roots into the bark of a tree and, with these roots, ends up leeching and depriving the tree of water. This seems like a good argument in theory, but it just doesn't make sense to me.
Not that I often go around inspecting Ball Moss, but the times I have observed it, whether on a tree or a downed limb, the roots don't seem to go much deeper than maybe a millimeter or two. Add to this the common knowledge that all kids are taught in school, 'Trees take in water mostly through their roots and sometimes through their leaves' and I just don't see how Ball Moss could kill a tree, or even a limb. If anything, I would think that the Ball Moss would be a benefit as it would help in preventing the limb from staying wet and rotting.
Anyways, since I had heard this opinion and I know that this is one of those often argued topics here, I thought I would bring it up. What do ya'll think? Could Ball Moss really steal that much moisture from a tree? Are there any arborists/horticulturalists that have extra information on whether a tree does or does not take moisture in from its bark? This seems to go against every thing I learned in school about how trees work, but then... we were also taught that Pluto was our 9th planet...
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Michael AKA Leekle2ManEOriginal Author
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