In May we launched an online competition to Guess the Weight of the OneOak tree – read more.

The competition closed at the end of August and we have one lucky winner who will receive a beautiful hand-carved bowl, made by master craftsman Martin Damen (see Martin Damen’s website).

The winning answer of 14.662 tonnes was only 277kg out from the correct answer of 14.385 tonnes (14385 kg).  Two runner up prizes will be presented, for the next two nearest guesses of 15.100 and 15.421 tonnes.

Foresters use tables to estimate the volume and weight of timber from a tree but these exclude the crownwood.  As you can see below, the crownwood actually weighed more than the tree’s massive stem; effectively 58% of the total weight.  This answer seems to have foxed even some of the best scientists who had a go at estimating the tree’s total weight.

Thank you to Ian Craig and colleagues of Forest Research who worked tirelessly over two days in the cold and wet to weigh every limb, branch and twig of the OneOak tree, and who then completed some serious number crunching in the laboratories of Forest Research at Alice Holt.