Now we have a question from Nikolas,
"In many climates there is as much
"or more rain in the winter season.
"What happens to the 48 plus percent,
"of rainfall the trees transpire,
"and the 25 plus percent,
"that evaporates off the leaf surfaces,
"while the deciduous forest have no leaves,
"and aren't transpiring?"
Well, there are variations to those climates.
So the climates that have more rain in winter,
and deciduous trees mainly the Mediterranean,
have herbs in the lower layer in winter.
And in summer the leaves are on the trees,
but the herbs dry off, and burn off.
So there's a certain amount taken out by the herbage,
there's a certain amount of involvement by the herbage.
But otherwise it goes to the ground,
and goes through the general soak of the system.
Now then you have the warm temperate zones,
which may have some herbage on the ground,
doesn't all get frozen off, and burnt off, in winter,
and you have mostly deciduous trees.
So a larger amount is going to go to the ground,
and go through the water soak system.
Now if that's trapped by swales,
it's extended over time,
in the Mediterranean, the warm temperate,
and all of these climates that have winter rain,
and not a lot of growth,
you've got a slow down
of that water transit through the system.
Instead of surface water running through,
without tree interaction so much,
you're getting the very, very slow transit
through the top soils and sub soils,
through swale introduction to the system.
Now the water harvests system of swales,
start to have a big effective winter,
extending that rain right through,
even right through the dry Mediterranean summer.
Then you go right up to the really cold temperate.
And in the really cold temperate trees are deciduous,
although there's more pines and evergreens there as well,
but a lot of the trees are deciduous,
and you get complete freeze off on the ground,
so you get nothing on the ground.
But then some of that goes into snow and ice,
and then you get a snow and ice melt.
But that again can all be extended
towards the summer growing season,
with water harvesting systems, particularly swales.
So this is why you get more decomposition in winter,
because of the extra soakage,
the extra damp rot,
and the extra molds that you get during that time of year.
And then it all flushes back in the spring,
and the trees go back into full function,
and really put on an enormous amount of leaf.
Mediterranean dries off in the herbs,
but the warm to cool temperate,
absolutely boom with herbs in the summer.
So the cold climates grow very, very rapidly
from the spring to mid-summer.
And it's not just,
the leaves of the deciduous trees,
but also the massive amount of herbage,
that's in the system as well.
So it's a little bit of an on/off system,
and particularly dramatic in the real cold.
Where it is definitely on and then off,
and with the Mediterranean you get a little bit of both,
you get on/off twice in a year.
So you got,
you're slowed down by a little bit of cold in winter,
and then it comes back on,
and then you slow down
by a little too much heat and dry in the summer,
and then it comes back on before it goes off again.
This is the way you've got to think,
you got to think about timing edges,
in relation to growth and water through a system.