How to Determine the Age of a Tree

I haven’t written in a couple of days because I’ve been sick and couldn’t get up the motivation to write a four-minute read about something stupid. I’m pretty sure I got sick because I only slept for like 3 hours a couple days in a row and forgot to eat for at least 24 hours during that time. I guess my immune system thought it’d hilarious to seek revenge by throwing it all to the wind. But, I’m back now. Blasting the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack and ready to baffle you with bullshit.

Today, we will be talking about something near and dear to my strained heart: how to tell how old a tree is. Believe it or not, there are actually many ways to determine the age of a tree. I will be improperly educating you about a few.

1st Strategy 

The first and probably the best way of going about this is to measure the trunk width of the tree at 4 1/2 feet from the ground. If the tree isn’t that tall, first of all, make sure it is, in fact, a tree and not a slightly large bush. Once you’ve measured 4 1/2 feet up, measure the circumference of the trunk. If you’re confused on how this might look, I’ve been kind enough to include a picture I stole from wikiHow.

If you don’t look EXACTLY like that, you’re doing it wrong.

Next, you need to measure the radius and diameter of the trunk. To do this you will need to cut the tree down, so by finding its age you are also effectively MURDERING it. If this makes you uncomfortable, move onto the next method but just know that you are weak. 

Actually, there is a way to go about this mathematically, but I wanted to give you the cool method before I introduced the nerdy one. You can actually really easily find the diameter of the trunk by dividing the circumference by pi. Get the radius by dividing the diameter by 2. Subtract about 1/2 inch from the radius to account for the exterior bark that does not contribute to the age of the tree.

If you took the high road before and used math to calculate the diameter, welcome back to the lowlands of corruption. Now, you actually have to MURDER the tree to accurately determine its age. Unless, of course, you’re a wimp. In which case, you can see to the less brutal method down below. Once the deed is done, count the total number of rings you see. Calculate the average ring width by, you guessed it, dividing the radius by the number of rings.

Finally, to find the age, divide the radius by the average ring width. Congratulations. That is probably incorrect.

2nd Strategy

Welcome to the land of cowards. In this strategy, we will be counting branch whorls. This is really only useful for evergreen trees. First, count the rows of branches at the same height. Check for stubs underneath the tree and count those too. Add two to four years to account for seedling growth. Uh, that’s it.

As a conclusion, I’d like to make clear that despite my tone earlier in this article, I do not advocate for the murdering of trees. In fact, I speak for the trees when I say those of you who, in spite of my ridicule, came to the 2nd strategy are the people who are bringing us a bright future. Salutations tree huggers.