Windsailing--effective or not?? Intuitive/ counterintuitive?

I've heard differing opinions on Windsailing trees.

Intuitively it seems that removing/ thinning would reduce the ability to catch wind and uproot.

I've heard the like many tree things, intuition about windsailing is wrong.

Removing a significant amount of foliage (of course less than 20-30% max) will reduce the photosynthetic capacity, and rob the tree of stored reserves in those branches, similarly to a canopy raise.

How will this effect the physics of the tree in its energy absorbing and dispersing ability?

How much will this force new growth out the top quickly to compensate for the lost foliage thoughout, thereby making the tree catch more wind up high?

Some people will remove all the inner canopy, as that's what they can reach from the trunk with Alternating Lanyard Technique. Others will selectively thin branches here than there thoughout the tree.

Thoughts, scientific evidence, anecdotal evidence, etc is welcome. Please qualify your source of information.

I have done it, it stops trees from blowing down next to clearcuts. We topped them as well, mostly big old growth. The idea is to provide shade to riparian areas, mostly creeks, until the understory can grow up.

There have been scientific studies on this practice here in B.C., a little more mortality than if they had been left, but they would have blown over anyways.

I believe if you remove no more than 20% of the branches as you climb, in a circular fashion, right to the top, but leave the top, it will work just fine.

I have also sidelimbed conifers beside powerlines, from the ground right to a 5" top, and they are still alive, growing, I drive by some of them often. This has been done to many thousands of trees here and they are ok. So, trees are pretty strong and resilient.

southsoundtree said:

Some people will remove all the inner canopy, as that's what they can reach from the trunk with Alternating Lanyard Technique. Others will selectively thin branches here than there throughout the tree.

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I will work the with the latter method, working mostly at the tip.

Lions-tailing and Raise & Gut methods have ben shown to change the "moment of bend" and "dynamic loading" of a limb/stem system.

The percent of canopy rule of thumb is a crutch for the under educated. A young tree you can take more then an old stable tree. If the big old tree is senescent, then maybe a 5% trim could throw it into Shigo's death spiral.

One of a tree survival strategies is to loose foliage and small branches to survive. A healthy tree will have an excess of dynamic mass, so judicious pruning will not harm it in the long term.

What you need to do is take a look at each limb and see how it moves, removing some leverage load from the tip will help reduce the risk of moderate-wind damage.