Trees -
Research
Maria
Thun looked into the research of Kurt Willmannas who observed 130
years of forest growth in Hesse Germany; "These showed that those
tracts which were planted at favourable planting times were still healthy
whereas other areas planted at times of unfavourable rhythms, had long
since been attacked by the bark beetle and other pests."
"If one looks for the time these deaths were first noticed ...
1860 in Silesia, in about 1890 150 Km further west, in 1920 in Saxony,
in 1950 a new wave of dying forsts occured in Sudeten and Erzgebirge....
the last wave began in 1976 when dying forests had spread all over Europe.....
it is said that 120 year old fir trees, 90 year old Soruce trees, 60
year old pine trees are dying. With saturn we find 30-year rhythms due
to the length of its orbit ... according to our research into cosmic
rhythms there are no chance events and we should take this very
seriously." (Results from the Biodynamic Planting and Sowing Calendar
- p 195 et seq.)
So what is a favourable planting time for a tree? In the biodynamic
approach a lot of the focus is on the planets outside the Sun's orbit
- Mars, Jupiter and Saturn - those whose own orbit is longer than a year.
Certain trees have been coupled with certain planets, at first dogmatically
but with back up research to check out the assertions. So Saturn governs
conifers, hornbeam, thuja, juniper, sloe and plum. Jupiter has maple,
copper beech, sweet chestnut, apple. Mars; Oak, walnut, morello cherry,
and horse chestnut. Ascending periods are recommended for planting and
sowing.
But the inner planets have some trees too! Birch, lime, robinia, pear
and larch are influenced by Venus and Mars. As before,
one must say that these planetary ownerships are among the more tenuous
recommendations.
Kollerstrom writes of
'Karen's Pear Trees' which were planted during an eclipse and took nine
years for the ragged trees to produce small bitter fruit. Schwenk showed
the seed viability reduced over eclipses too.
Lawrence
Edwards and Graham Calderwood have demonstrated that the over-winter
buds of trees change their dimensions in a rhythm corresponding to
the interplay of the Moon and the tree's home planet. Beech, for instance,
is also considered by this work to be a Saturn plant.
Burr investigated the electrical potentials of maple and beech trees
throughout a forest.
Stephan Schmidt has worked with the planetary associations of trees
following his father and grandfather.
