Overheard a utility forester talking about tree rings, mind blown

Last week I was waiting on a permit at the county office and caught two utility foresters chatting about reading tree rings under power lines. One said they can spot a tree that's been stressed by root damage just by the width of the rings, no core sample needed. Apparently a ring that's suddenly half the normal width means something big happened that year, like construction or a drought. It made me think about how we diagnose tree health on jobs, we often focus on leaves and bark but miss the history right in the trunk. I've started taking a closer look at old stumps we remove for clients, seeing if I can piece together what the tree went through. Has anyone else tried reading growth rings on a removed tree and found something that changed how you treated the site?

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