Spruce and pine are easily distinguished from eachhother.
Approximate age in young conifers can be told by counting the annual whorls of lateral branches.
Of course growing conditions matter. 2M tall? I'll guess no more than 10 years old.
Root system: look at the form, the shape, of the tree.
Notice when rain water would run off the outermost/longest/oldest branches.
This is the "drip line." Most of the youngest root tips will be, more-or-less, in the drip line.
That means that any substantially older and larger roots will be within that circle.
You won't get much. You'll do a lot of disturbance to a small root system to find anything useful.
Plus, as a percentage, you take a substantial fraction of what little root system the tree does have at a young age.
Wait another 20 years.
Okay, that sounds like a cop out, but it isn't entirely. My friend Stuart spent time with the Penan in Borneo who traditionally used the most incredibly intricate rattan bindings. On latter trips he found that they were starting to use packing strap, split down in much the same way as you can split down rattan, or spruce root. When he wanted a parang made he had to ask the smiths to use the rattan rather than the new material...they thought that he didn't understand and tried to explain how superior packing strap was compared to the rattan. LOL. Subsequently I used packing strap to braid the lashings to hold my wooden parang sheath together, following the same method that the Penan used, worked very well and still holding after years.
