11 thoughts on “Tree Talk (TALON Talk)”

1. Hey Henry! Wonderful presentation! I loved the flow and style between the slides and pictures; I think they all flowed together really well! Your voice was also very calming, which only added to the presentation!

   One question: You mentioned that there are some woods that are more rot resistant compared to others, and proceeded to show a list of some rot prone and rot resistant woods. Did you order these woods in any way when making this list? If not, what would you say is the most rot resistant wood out of the ones you had listed?

   Thank you for the presentation,

   Kavyan

   1. Glad you enjoyed the presentation! For your question, I didn’t create the list of rot-prone and rot-resistant woods (Here’s the link to the webpage: https://creatorskills.com/woods-that-do-not-rot/). There wasn’t a specified order, but I do believe that the more expensive wood species were first on the list.

      Thanks, Henry

2. Great job Henry! Your presentation was very informative and I learned a lot from watching it. You went over your points very thoroughly and clearly, which I appreciated as not everybody knows that much about this specific topic. 🙂 I was just wondering more about how the soft rot makes those holes in the wood, because you talked about scientifically how the other kinds break down the wood really well, but not so much the soft rot. So if you could give me a little more information on that, I would be really grateful. Thanks!

   1. Happy to hear you got all the points down, I thought it wasn’t a strong point of mine. That’s also a really good question. There was a lot of information about brown and white rot on the web, and most sites didn’t talk about soft rot as a third type of decay so I didn’t go into detail. Basically, soft rot only targets the second layer of the cell wall in the wood cells (we conveniently recently learned about these thick walls in the plant cell) and can be described more like a cavity rather than decay. These cavities on the walls slowly progress throughout the wood until they’re completely gone, leaving that honeycomb-like appearance!

      Here’s the source with all the details if you want to read more for yourself, explanation starts at paragraph 3. https://aem.asm.org/content/70/3/1328

3. Hi Henry! Great presentation! I loved the small little animations you added to some of the text and pictures, it helped me stay interested in the video! I also really enjoy the number of pictures you used, as it really gave me a good idea about what you were talking about. My favourite part was where you talked about the different types of rotting, and I found it interesting that different types of rots could survive at different temperatures!

   I just have a small question though: What should I do if some of the wooden features in my house are rotting? How can I deal with it safely?

   Thanks, Dylan

   1. I thought the animations and pictures were a fun addition, totally worth the time!
      If you see some wood rotting in your house, have a few different options. First off, make sure it’s rot and not something else! Here’s a video that explains this really well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P9Br1DoL_A
      If you just see a bit of rotting beginning to happen, and the wood isn’t soft yet, find the source of moisture that’s causing the wood rot and cut it off. No moisture, no fungi. If you want to be on the safe side, you can also buy some fungicide and apply it to prevent future rotting.
      If the rot is evident at first glance, then you can repair it with various products. Just search “wood rot repair” on Amazon and there’ll be plenty of products you can choose from. There are also lots of websites and videos on the web that you can follow to use the product.
      If you can feel that the wood is very soft or could be a safety hazard, replace the wood. Make sure you buy the right kind of wood, follow online tutorials, and you should be set. You honestly shouldn’t need to do this if you have common sense in keeping your house dry and clean.

      1. Thanks! I’ll keep this in mind!

4. Henry! Now that’s some real in depth information about wood rot, I was blown away by the amount of understanding demonstrated in the presentation. One point that really stuck out to me is the images you utilized as well as the timing for the images to appear, these visual aids helped me understand and observe rather than just listening and memorizing. One section I would push you on is to add small bullet points as well to aid understanding that act like a summary of the slide. Since I am fascinated with architecture, wood being a fundamental building material, I have heard that there are treatments available for wood that allows it to be rot resistant, or there are variations of wood that are rot resistant, what are some examples of that? Overall, this was a spectacular presentation, and don’t worry, my house is dry.

   1. Thanks for the compliments and the suggestion Hanson! I’ll try to add some more text to accompany images in the future. I didn’t research much on rot prevention treatments for wood. I believe that wax or bleach are some common treatments for wood rot, but I’m certain that there are lots of different products available to purchase online for rot prevention or repair. I’m assuming by “variations of wood” you mean different species/types of wood. For that, I showed a list of rot-prone and rot-resistant woods in my video, watch it over if you missed it! Some quick examples off the top of my head mahogany, cedar, and redwood are pretty resistant. Pine, maple, and birch, not so much. Glad you feel confident your house is dry as well.

5. Wow, Henry, this talk is just impressive! I loved the design of the slides, the clear effort put into every detail and the great content. I felt like I was being taught a lesson by a classroom teacher, and I mean this in the best way possible – this is just so professional! The little “The More You Know” audio snippet, the great ending music and the warning about Trypophobia are examples of some really sweet touches. Your content is also amazing; It’s so interesting and you did a really thorough job of answering your question. I can’t praise this talk enough!

   I was almost ready to say this ted talk was so good that it answered all my questions, but I do have one – do people often attempt to apply prevention methods to fungus on certain woods? In other words, are there substances available that can kill fungi and keep the tree healthy? Humans often try to find ways to kill what they don’t like so I’m curious if external factors like that play a big role in which houses rot and which don’t, Looking forward to knowing!

   Thank you for teaching me so much about trees. I might just go and hug one, I love trees! You did a super great job.

   Thanks,
   – Bana

   1. Sounded like you enjoyed, glad you did! I had a great time reading your compliments and thanks for making my day better (not saying that I had a bad day).

      I got a lot of questions around rot prevention products, which if I had thought of it earlier, I definitely would have researched more. For your question, yes, humans non-surprisingly have made various types of fungicides to kill fungi while keeping wood healthy. However, like pesticides, there are undoubtedly other negative effects of using them. If used excessively, other organisms nearby can be harmed.

      The only adjustable external factor we can change within our houses is the amount of moisture, and that’s basically what determines if wood in our houses rot our not. Using substances to keep wood in your house healthy isn’t very practical, as houses are pretty big and you’d have to spend a lot of time spraying it.

      If you want some more details about rot-prevention and repair, I also answered similar questions from Dylan and Hanson above. Also, hugging a tree is a great idea. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

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