In article 1120281346.0d0d82b38f8f99b5a132fc3aac0c8f05@teran ews, Sean Houtman wrote:
wrote in news:1120247575.530727.42810
:

A tree is made of water, minerals and CO2.
Is there a rough estimate what percentage of its mass
is lifted from the soil, and how much is added from the
atmosphere?

You can do this on your own with a simple process. Weigh a tree,
then burn it. All the CO2 and water will go away, leaving the stuff
that came from the soil. You can weigh the ashes to get a rough
estimate. It is not a precise measure, since some ash will be
carried away as smoke, the nitrogen will also go, and the ashes
will be mostly oxides instead of the salts they were taken in as.

Well, yes. But don't forget that trees get most(?) of their water
from the soil too [not sure about species in cloud forests and
similar] and the questioner asked in terms of "lifted from the soil".


Cheers, Phred.

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LID