Officials on Monday performed a good-luck ritual to pray for the safe relocation of a 300-year-old banyan tree, the Tainan City Government’s Agriculture Bureau said.

Bureau Director Lee Chao-tang and staff visited Chenan Temple next to the banyan tree, where they prayed to Taoist deity Shennong (god of agriculture) for the successful relocation of the tree and tied several safety amulets to its branches, the bureau said.

The 300-year-old banyan tree, nicknamed “grandfather” and listed as one of Tainan’s protected trees due to its age, is healthy, but urban land readjustment elevated the surrounding ground, so it is now in a low-lying area, it said.

The low ground could collect standing water after showers and waterlogged soil might damage the roots of the tree, so there is an urgent need to move it to higher ground, the bureau said.

To ensure the safety of the banyan tree after its relocation, the bureau is using a tree disease sniffing dog from National Pingtung University of Science and Technology to make sure it does not have brown root rot, a common and lethal tree disease in Taiwan, Lee said.

To find a proper area to settle the 300-year-old tree and an auspicious time to prune its roots to facilitate the relocation, which would not take place until October, the bureau consulted not only experts from Tainan’s Tree Protection Committee, but also a spirit medium at the temple to communicate with the deity, because the temple has looked after the tree for more than 250 years, Lee said.

Another reason to consult the medium was that the tree was allegedly once involved in a mysterious incident, in which five chainsaws used to prune the tree suddenly malfunctioned all at the same time and pruning could only proceed after religious counseling, the temple said.

A park behind the temple has been selected as a new home for the tree, it added.