When lightning strikes a tree you usually have to take a wait and see approach.
Are lightning strikes worse on softwood trees than hardwood trees.
When lightning strikes the sap in the bark of the tree is subject to extreme temperatures many times hotter than the surface of the sun due to electrical resistance.
The wood of hardwood trees has more cell types and less air spaces.
Classifying wood as either a hardwood or softwood comes down to its physical structure and makeup and so it is overly simple to think of hardwoods as being hard and durable compared to soft and workable softwoods.
Hardness can be said to be a function of the wood s density and hardwood trees are generally denser than softwood trees.
This means that the leaves fall off in autumn and the tree remains leafless through springtime.
For the trees that live for a few years you can run into the problem of the lightning scars and loss of bark making the tree more exposed to insects and diseases.
Lightning damage in trees.
Now what s interesting about this is that most trees do not survive lightning strikes.
Conifer wood contains only a few different cell types.
Although sometimes old needles.
Unlike hardwood trees softwood trees generally don t shed their leaves once a year.
The redwoods have considerably more heft and though will suffer some damage rarely will die completely.
In order to prevent lightning from harming your trees you may consider installing a lightning protection system that uses copper cables attached to the tree s uppermost branches and grounded a few meters away from the tree.
Tree protection against lightning strikes.
Hardwood information specifies that hardwood trees are deciduous.
That s why some trees violently explode when struck by lightning.
Some trees die immediately from the damage while other trees will live for a number of years.
Tree damage from a lightning strike.
Furthermore softwood trees don t enter a state of dormancy during the winter like hardwood trees.
Qualified arborists can recommend the installation of lightning protection systems where appropriate or the proper course of action if a tree has been struck by lightning.
Lightning damage in trees is much more effectively prevented than repaired and is often less costly.
The spark of death.
Well most trees aren t 200 feet often 300 feet tall and 25 feet wide.
Once the lightning strikes the electricity will be diverted to the cable.
When lightning hits a tree it steams water inside the tree busts bark from the trunk and branches and can even split a tree open in extreme cases.
On the other hand softwood conifers do not pass the winter with bare branches.
The electrical resistance causes the sap to be heated into steam which can make it explode.
Also known as gymnosperm trees softwood trees are defined by their ability to produce seed bearing cones or fruit which they drop to reproduce.
