Have been to Tommers a number of times. Great tradition and sad to see them go.

Absolutely. If you missed it, here is the story: http://www.southernpigskin.com/SEC/view/auburns-toomer-trees-to-be-removed1

As an Alabama fan, I’m ashamed of this. This was taking sports too far. I just hope they can start a new tradition with whatever they replace them with (even though it will never be the same).

Killing old trees, t-bagging ROLL TIDE

Shame, now Auburn won’t have old oak trees to use for recruiting like Ole Pi$$ does to bring in these high profile recruits….......

That’s sad that one disgraceful act can ruin such a tradition.

any word on whats going to be going up? im some new oak is going to be planted…some one in the AU agri dep im sure is making seedlings out of the acorn droppings.

It would be hard to transplant an oak of any size and there might be too much poison in the ground now.  They will probably build a monument of some sort.

didnt think about residual poisons. But im sure someone at AU has some acorns from the original trees they are germinating. it would be 10 years before it was old enough to transplant any ways.

Well I’m sure some geotech or environmental engineers could clean the soil out with the right treatment but it would be expensive and take some time.  They clean out aquifers by pumping water in one place and out another to wash the soil or push contaminants out.  A similar process could work.  Or if the poison hasn’t spread too far they could just dig all the bad soil out and put fresh fertile soil in its place for a new tree.  But if they consider the tradition lost already it would make sense to go with a monument.  Possibly Cam’s dad and a suitcase full of money.

a mass excavation like that would make it pretty inhospitable for oaks, Oaks require a mycorhiza which are nitrogen fixing fungi that get into their root systems to help them pull nitrogen out of the soil. thats why wild oaks only grow around dead oak trees.

I thought bacteria was responsible for most of the nitrogen fixation? 

I’m sure they could supplement it with the proper soil if they tried.

bacteria play a large role, esp in grasses…but in the case of hardwoods especially its all about the fungi. and oaks are a funny little plant. naturally they grow out of the decay of a dead oak. thats why you rarely see oak seedlings pop up even though theres thousands of acorns around.