Windsail reduction--effective or waste of time

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I am envious
of some of you that must have customers that will pay you for time
with a hand lens and risistograph. I cherish a customer here that
will actually take the time to listen and pay for proper care. I have not
found that magical customer yet willing to pay a living to care for his trees.

You will when you get certified. They will find you!

Nodal networks, organisms without volition, JPS you da man!

Trees in forests don't need us so much, but clear around them and pollute them and stress them and yes our assumptions are needed. Great story about triggering aerial roots--that would work on other sp. too...
 
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There was a study titled The Effects of Pruning on Drag and Bending Movement of Shade Trees in Arboriculture & Urban Forestry. Scientific Journal of the ISA. Volume 34 No4 July 2008.

It was was an interesting article, and it showed that there were a lot of variables to apply with regards to species, size/dimension of the crown, wind velocity, and mass (tree mass). For example wind speed is often substantially greater than at the base therefore removing the lower branches would less effectively reduce drag than reduction pruning.

In the conclusion it also noted that "pruning recommendations cannot be developed exclusively in light of mechanical considerations. Physiological considerations are also important as are the incidence of decay and regrowth after pruning. Further studies are needed to help determine pruning recommendations in terms of species, age, health, site conditions, tree risk, and aesthetics".,
It's well worth you reading as there are a lot of hard facts, and statistics pertaining to particular species. I hope this helps.



EDIT TO ABOVE POST : in Paragraph 2 it should read 'For example wind speed is substantially greater AT HEIGHT than at the base therefore removing the lower branches would less effectively reduce drag than reduction pruning. Apologies.
 
Thinking you somehow know better than the tree, which way, how tall, or how thick it should be is presumptuous and preposterous.

That very windsail that you mistakenly assume causes problems is the very dynamic force distribution system forcing the greatest leverage lower in the tree into the very wood big enough to take the strain and remain standing on it's lateral roots.

Branches in close proximity to each other support each other in high winds, effectively limiting their range of motion before encountering support from it's nearby neighbor.

If the dang tree could talk it would beg you to keep your presumptuously mistaken azz out of it and leave it alone until you really understand wht the hell you're doing.

When you finally realise that trees are far better off without us around, you will have taken the first step in becoming a journeyman arborist.

Work with nature, learn from it, enhance it and leave your mistaken assumptions at the door that's always open.

jomoco

If trees were left to nature and in their natural setting then an arborist wouldn't need to develop modification techniques. For example, I've been consulting with a developer who it putting in a planned community in what was a second growth conifer forest (Red cedar, Douglas fir, western hemlock) up to 160" tall. Largest diameter was about 4'. So most of the trees were tall and skinny with no taper and a crown size of less than 30% of total height. Growing in a forest setting these trees (particularily the codominant layer) are supported by their neighours, but once the land is cleared for housing, the edge trees are now subjected to wind stresses they were never subjected to before. Their stem or root growth is different than an open grown tree.

Now, as the arborist, you need to make modification because the environment has changed. Unfortunately, stripping the forest edge back to a safe distance isn't always an option due to planning or environmental regulations, so tree modification prescriptions have to be made. At this point, in this situation, windsail reduction is the most viable one I've seen.
 
If trees were left to nature and in their natural setting then an arborist wouldn't need to develop modification techniques. For example, I've been consulting with a developer who it putting in a planned community in what was a second growth conifer forest (Red cedar, Douglas fir, western hemlock) up to 160" tall. Largest diameter was about 4'. So most of the trees were tall and skinny with no taper and a crown size of less than 30% of total height. Growing in a forest setting these trees (particularily the codominant layer) are supported by their neighours, but once the land is cleared for housing, the edge trees are now subjected to wind stresses they were never subjected to before. Their stem or root growth is different than an open grown tree.

Now, as the arborist, you need to make modification because the environment has changed. Unfortunately, stripping the forest edge back to a safe distance isn't always an option due to planning or environmental regulations, so tree modification prescriptions have to be made. At this point, in this situation, windsail reduction is the most viable one I've seen.

A valid point, well taken in that it acknowledges it's a man made problem being addressed by man that is inflicted on the forest to benefit man at the expense of the cleared trees.

Arborists do their best hopefully to accomodate trees to mans flawed ideas of a sustainable environment for them.

Erythrina caffra the african coral tree in almost every socal community is a perfect example of a marvelously exotic softwood, almost succulent like tree that almost every commercial climber who's ever climbed one has either fallen out of completely or broken out of completely. In their natural settings they are drought resistant requiring minimal water and nutrients to survive and sprout their huge clusters of crimson orangish flowers each year.

But plopped into the typical socal landscape they are overwatered, over fertilized, planted in lawns where they go totally ape crazy growing at unbelievable rates of speed such that every sping and early summer they basically self destruct by the hundreds and thousands unless they are pruned back hard every six months. These trees in these unnatural settings being pruned so hard so frequently never seem to flower because of all the new tertiary sprouting. Each early summer here in socal is coral breakout season, and climbers breakout and hit the ground with them every year.

Fortunately these trees do not generally get big enough that the fall is very far as they tend to grow wide rather than tall so that even a tied in climber usually hits the ground when the branch he's standing on breaks out from under him.

Naturally most arborists that can get to these out of place time bombs with a bucket, use them to safely prune them with. But there are probably millions of them that can't be reached with a bucket for one reason or another, and it takes an experienced climber to prune them without ending up a frustrated bloody mess and then breaking out of them and hitting the ground also, you see they have the most wicked razor sharp black thorns on their wood structure aplenty.

It's an arborist nightmare unless it is maintained and grown in a low water low nutrient environment, as it does so well and beautifully in it's natural setting.

Just one example of a tree introduced into the modern world and going wild as it demands arboricultural maintenance on a biannual basis or else!

jomoco
 
You will when you get certified. They will find you!

Nodal networks, organisms without volition, JPS you da man!

Trees in forests don't need us so much, but clear around them and pollute them and stress them and yes our assumptions are needed. Great story about triggering aerial roots--that would work on other sp. too...

Hmmmmm I could see good use of musquidine vines in this area as well:Eye:
 
Re: South Sound Tree

Oh man, all I gotta say is I feel your pain. Down here just a little south of you I've been weathering the worst snowfall the Willamette Valley has seen since anyone can remember, and I even asked the really old people. Now the rest of the middle to northern latitude regions of the country are sitting there watching the storm on the weather channel are thinking what's the big deal about 18 inches of snow.
Well for one thing when giant conifers are allowed to go unchecked in a region that is considered the most productive ecosystem in the world in terms of vegetation biomass. Then throw a freak 40 year snow and ice storm at it Enormous trees start falling apart. That coupled with being a place that sits cozily between California and Canada, where we always have to worry about the explosive development, despite the economy and the man vs. nature interaction created therein, which brings me to my point.
Regardless of what nature intends, people are going to do what people intend to do. We live in cities and towns, and not in the wilderness, and when Arborists (how dare it be used as a slur) are faced with such issues as clients who will pay to have what they want which isn't more natural disasters, like when the house built on a sand dune began sliding into the ocean, or flames kept appearing on their shake shingles, they want to know that their beautiful Douglas-fir in the yard isn't going to be joining them in their living room some day, otherwise beautiful as it is, it's gone. Or the old landowner disgruntled by local governments, and thanks to some recent ballot measures radio advertisements is ready for the first excuse his stand of trees gives him to take em out and subdivide the whole place.
If we have to tell people that we are making the trees safer, in order for them to sleep at night, and prevent the unnecessary removal of a non hazardous healthy oxygen producing Co2 absorbing tree isn't it worth it???
 

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