would it be possible to break the roots of my garden cherry tree with blackpowder?

[serene]

Hello people.
Right i have a cherry tree in my garden that needs to be taken down as it has started to grow all the way under the paving slabs about 2 meters away. I was going to use a saw for the main part of the tree but i am not sure how to get the main roots out. The roots are very thick and hard to get to with the saw so i currently have a problem with breaking them from the main stump.
I have currently run out of chemicals to make anything but BP so bear that in mind. Anyway, i was wondering if it would be possible to put something by the roots (maybe under them, or drill into them) that could give off enough force to break them from the main stump. These roots are in simple words 'a bitch' to get out of the ground so any advice you could give me would be very appreciated.

Or if you know any other ways to remove stumps etc then let me know on here

[kingspaz]

if you can make good enough BP then it should be good enough. they used BP in the old days for rock blasting after all.
personly i'd choose an ANFO type comp, or a cheddite. but for those you'd need more chemicals. if you could aquire nitromethane and ammonum nitrate then you'd have a decent charge to use. may end up splintering the roots rather than shifting them though. i'm sure you could get the chemicals for a simple AP detonator.

[nbk2000]

Make a saturated solution of KNO3 (which you must have if you can make BP), and pour it into the roots after drilling holes in them. Let soak for a few weeks, repeating as needed, then light it up. :)

The roots will smolder into charcoal and be gone.

Trying to blast them out will likely cause more trouble than it'll solve. Not every problem is a nail to be hit with the explosives hammer. ;)

[Tuatara]

Good grief! Hire a fucking stump grinder, remove everything above ground, and let the bloody roots rot out! They'll be gone in a year. Untreated timber disintegrates really fast in soil - theres all sorts of bacteria and fungi eagerly awaiting the chance to do your work for you.

[nbk2000]

But that's nowhere near as fun as blowing them up, or burning them out, now is it? ;)

[Cyclonite]

NBK I beg to differ, any problem can be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.:D

[serene]

I think that the idea of waiting a year wont be too good for my garden as the roots are currently liftin up the pavin slabs (2 slaps are about 2.5 inches higher than the rest).

Kinspaz. I do have 1/2 a jar of ammonim nitrate but i thought it needed quite a large shock to detonate. Would i be able to detonate it with the chemicals i have??

I think that NBk's idea is the way i will probably get them out.

[DBSP]

Make some AP and you'll be set, APAN is your choise of explosive. Not that hard to get rid of those roots.

[vulture]

Depends how far away the closest windows are....

[frogfot]

Explosives is not a solution here, cherry trees usually gives lots of small roots in big radius around main tree. Theese roots are capable to give new shoots, so, destroying roots of main tree wouldn't kill it all...
In mine experience theese shoots usually come up when the main tree is sawed down. Other cherry trees that are "intact" don't have as many shoots..

Don't have a solution, but making the soil "harder to live in" sounds promicing :p poisoning it somehow, hihi

[serene]

Okay for your knowledge i will give you all an idea of the layout of this section of the garden.

If your were under cherry tree and facing it you would:

1) Have a 7 foot fence to the next house about 4 foot infront of you
2) Have the paving slabs 1.5 meters to your left
3) Have glass windows about 4 meters to your left
4) Have the another fence 3 meters to the right of you

the layout would be something like this from an arial view (not to scale and sorry for the crudeness of the picture). This is the only place i know to upload pictures too. This was back in the day so dont judge me on this bikerpunk shit lol.


http://www.bikeflat.com/albums/users/garden.jpg

[VladiO]

There's gotta be a type of chemical out there than will run through the tree (assuming you have it in whole still) that will break down cells and kill the tree and roots. Although it would have to go in through the roots initially so you would have to poison the ground as frogfot said. If there was a way of having a solution go down to the roots instead of up, you would inject the tree (Lethal Injection =\) and watch it die.

Blowing it out will probably leave a decent hole in your yard, in which case you may as well save yourself the trouble and risk by using a big ass shovel.

If you wanna try and unleash some termites on the tree that might do the trick if you could contain them.

[knowledgehungry]

4 meters is definitly too close for windows if you want to blast the stump out IMHO.

[Chemical_burn]

My god has everyone forgot what a good sharp axe is for! LOL :D
I would go with NBK's idea.

As for another way you could cut down the tree and cut out most of the stump till only the roots remain just below the gounds surface. Then you dig out the dirt around the roots and fill in around them with charcol and burn out the stump just let it smolder for a day or two everyonce in a while stiring the coals. This method works very well. Also you can cut out the stump and peel back most of the bark on the roots and soak them with dirty motor oil. It works good but tends to contaiminate the soil around the tree. Hmm also thinking about it you could dig out the stump and pack the hole with rock salt the salt will obsorbe the water form the roots and kill them then you just dig out the salt and throw it away then cover up the roots with dirt. I dont know if the salt will work very well though I have used it to kill weeds before but I never removed the salt to is contaminated the soil and nothiong ever grew there again too alkaline for most things.

[GibboNet]

Of course, a few years ago, at the height of my chemical limitedness, I dug out a massive area of bamboo, cutting it off at the base, and digging the entire root system out of the ground. I had a hole up to my waist, and about 4x3 metres around. :(

Aside from taking me a month of weekend work, it confirmed my belief that bamboo is eveil, and that the use of explosives in such situations IS justified.

[Tuatara]

A trip to the garden shop should arm you with enough toxic chemicals to kill anything. I'm not sure if glyphosate works well on trees, but there are other things designed to kill things like hardwoods, privet and bamboo. I agree Gibbonet - bamboo is totally evil. Makes good garden stakes though.

[vulture]

Inject saturated NaClO3 solution, which is a powerful poison for plants. After it dies, inject more NaClO3 and proceed to burn, just like NBK suggested. The NaClO3 will make ignition *somewhat* easier. :D

[Desmikes]

I hate to be a party pooper but it would take a LOT of KNO3 or NaClO3 to get the job done even if the roots were sitting in the open and you were dumping O carrier on top. Trying to get the wood to soak up enough oxidizer while it is still under ground is most likely impossible. Drilling won't make your job easier either, b/c you would have to drill holes within 10-15 cm from each other, meaning that you would have to dig up the entire root system anyway. The only thing that you can hope to achieve via this method would be for roots to decompose much quicker. So I would say cut it down and keep offspring from coming out with some chems (I think salt will work, it can be obtained at low price in large chunks). But of course that would mean no more garden for you. :-(