Working hurricanes

[Ekka]

Lordy, another genius .... Shigo would turn in his grave. :notrolls2:

 

[Ekka]

Wow, I was so lucky again today driving around observing road side trees and just like that BOOM!

Some more worthy candidates.

Check out this smooth character.

Then out of the blue I spotted this tree which featured both target cuts and Meilleur-folie cuts ... all in the same frame.

Lets check it out.

And how big is that target cut that sealed over?

And lets check out that Meilleur-folie cut close.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Sure, the a healthy tree has had a large limb cut off, and closes over. The discussion is on trees that have lost a significant portion of their canopy.

Our position is that "reparation" trimming should be managed gradually, you say cut everything to the collar, even if you are cutting "half" the tree away.

To paraphrase the eminent Dr. (call me Al) Shigo, the debate is about dosage and time.

I say apply a gradual, and thoughtful, management program.

You say lop'em all off now and be done with it.

You say we are reverting to old bad practices, I say the "new" ideology has now become dogmatic. You are a great example, with your bombastic pillorying of those who take a stance counter to the party line.

 

[outofmytree]

What a great thread. I skipped reading this for days because I thought it was just another "check out how much I made this week" series of posts.

I have seen a number of wound closures over 300mm myself as well as many that have not. The difficulty for learning arborists like me comes in understanding why one calluses and another doesn't. Perhaps I should take a few photographs of different wounds and ask for your opinions.

I am drawn to the concept of removing as little of a tree as possible post trauma but TV and Ekka have both posted information which lines up with my meager botanical knowledge. Is it possible to have ones cake and eat it too? Redirecting a limb seems to be a similar process but of course we rely on existing growth rather than possible future growth for that sort of pruning.

Ah well. I said I was learning.....

 

[Ekka]

Sure, the a healthy tree has had a large limb cut off, and closes over. The discussion is on trees that have lost a significant portion of their canopy.

The thread is also about removing large limbs if you care to read it and comprehend it.

Our position is that "reparation" trimming should be managed gradually, you say cut everything to the collar, even if you are cutting "half" the tree away.

Find me where I said I'm cutting half the tree away? :monkey:

To paraphrase the eminent Dr. (call me Al) Shigo, the debate is about dosage and time.

About time then you noticed what dosage a species can take and applied accordingly to the situation.

I say apply a gradual, and thoughtful, management program.

You say lop'em all off now and be done with it.

Once again, where did I say that and quote it? And are you insinuating that another approach that's different to yours is unthoughtful? :monkey:

You say we are reverting to old bad practices, I say the "new" ideology has now become dogmatic. You are a great example, with your bombastic pillorying of those who take a stance counter to the party line.

Nice tar brush you got there. LOL If you read you'll see how loaded your opinions and approach is.

I like to think I'm a good example of not lying down and taking as gospel the one sided facade that is proposed here. In rebuttle I post pictures and facts, meanwhile you lot throw garbage and names plus insinuate I say and write things that I do not .... you guys say I'm a troll but you're out of conTROLL.

Just have a look at your loaded post, then have a look at the BS in this thread, readers and clients need to know not all what they see and read is "gospel" just because Guy M or JPS said so.

If you care to dig you'll see I did mention nodes, and my perspective of them.

Here is my post about it, and second post after it I added pertinent points to Guy's pictures and issues I saw, hardly a "bombastic pillorying" but interesting to see that's how you people perceive it and interesting to note how you deal with it.

There doesn't appear to be much difference in the regrowth from a nodal cut to an inter-nodal cut IMHO.

Both cuts push out a lot more than 1 new shoot from 1 bud. Both cuts require returning to thin out the suckers and manage a strong one or two.

When I prune roses to a node I get one new stem growing, I can even determine the direction that stems grow by cutting to say an outward facing bud ... that's how you prune roses and things like hibiscus. I feel that the inclusion of the terminology "nodes" as a target point was introduced to satisfy the whims of a broad spectrum of horticultural people. Sure trees have nodes on pencil sized stems in the nursery however in large established trees where we are talking about cutting 4" dia+ branches the practice has been skewed to fubar to satisfy some academic reasoning..... not saying that nodes do not exist just that cutting to them evokes about the same problems and management as a straight forward topping!

Those trees in your pictures Guy look like round over topping jobs, those re-established canopies you see on the ice work trees same, argue what you like but I'm not the only skeptic. We are yet to be presented with a good sample of disected nodal cuts and topping cuts 3 years and 5 years afterwards, disected on both axis to see the difference.

In the recent storms here many eucs lost their tops, those where all leaders etc were broken were removed. What are you going to do, have 50 epicormic shoots growing from every cut to manage on a grand scale of 1000's of park trees?

I can see the use of this for crown restoration on selected trees but on a grand scale you might want to bring in an orchard pruning machine and clean cut the trees en-mass, end result would be about the same.

The sprouts you both herald as the decay savers only feed the vascular cambium, so the heartwood remains as unprotected as before. Sprouts do accelerate sealing of the wound though, so stub ends will grow over faster with sprouts than without, but many times sprouts die within 3 years too and you'll be left with a huge advertising sign "yo bugs, mega banquet here".

Sprouts also occasionally emerge near target cuts, it's suggested by many experts to leave them as they once again speed up the sealing process, however they do need to be managed, I'll see if I can get some pictures.

 

[treeseer]

The difficulty for learning arborists like me comes in understanding why one calluses and another doesn't.

I have the same difficulty, but with enough study we may be able to come up with a reasonable protocol.

I am drawn to the concept of removing as little of a tree as possible post trauma but TV and Ekka have both posted information which lines up with my meager botanical knowledge.

tHE 1/3 rule and the collar cut are starting-off places. Note that Shigo (who admitted he was still learning, and encouraged us to not rely on his findings but learn for ourselves) endorsed pruning to nodes, saying that every branch is different, and that rules are too strict for Mother Nature. He defined a node as a place where the terminal bud was set--much easier to see on other species than on eucs, so you in Oz obviously may find it harder to follow.

please do post pics but perhaps a new thread should be started as this one has veered into vendettas.

Pugnacity begets mendacity; no sagacity without veracity.

 

[ddhlakebound]

Just so everyone doesn't have to go to the dictionary....

Pugnacity - Inclination or readiness to fight

mendacity - the tendency to be untruthful

sagacity - the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations

veracity - Adherence to the truth; truthfulness

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Those trees in your pictures Guy look like round over topping jobs, those re-established canopies you see on the ice work trees same, argue what you like but I'm not the only skeptic.

What would they look like if he had cut them back further? Probably a stump.

 

[Ekka]

LOL, whenever Treeseer's challenged he cries all sorts of rubbish, stay on topic Treeseer and quit crying!

What would they look like if he had cut them back further? Probably a stump.

JPS, I wrote and once again.

In the recent storms here many eucs lost their tops, those where all leaders etc were broken were removed. What are you going to do, have 50 epicormic shoots growing from every cut to manage on a grand scale of 1000's of park trees?

I can see the use of this for crown restoration on selected trees but on a grand scale you might want to bring in an orchard pruning machine and clean cut the trees en-mass, end result would be about the same.

Also the size of the cuts matter, the smaller the branch the better. To tip a tree where the cuts are all into say wood below 1" dia for most parts would mean the cuts are into sapwood and recovery would be quick. As you start to go larger in the diameters so do the problems. At small diameters nodes in most species are very visible.

In some fairly good compartmentalizers here I did experiment tipping cuts, taking Leopard trees for example which can grow quite long vigorous tentacles I headed a few back to nodes. I did this as the client didn't like the bazaar tentacle spiky look from the top of his tree, I only did it on a few of these stems to see what happens and left the rest alone.

All that happened is where I cut I got a kink in the branch and one if not two replacement tentacles, no advantage gained. These cuts were into stems perhaps 15mm thick maximum. In effect to gain the desire look the client was after you'd have to hedge trim the trees, luckily he came around and the trees now are very good looking and balanced naturally with only DDDD removed from the canopy with a crown lift for the driveway.

In another example of restorative node pruning the tips of a ficus elastica were cut back, no more than 1" dia cuts to the entire canopy to regenerate a new crown as the tree was struggling. Whilst this defies logic in tree biology it can at times rejuvenate a tree, and ficus is a likely candidate for that. The tree fully recovered, looks great and to the naked eye of course you cant tell. Our Australian Standards of pruning do accommodate heading and tipping cuts for crown rejuvenation, but we're not taking that as meaning a green light to leave 12" dia stubs all over the tree.

Page 17 AS4373-2007

7.3.5 Remedial (restorative) pruning (H)
This type of pruning shall only be carried out on trees which have lost their natural form and structure through storm damage, mechanical damage, vandalism, lopping, dieback or disease. This method is usually only used when all other approaches have failed and replacing the tree is difficult. The purpose of this pruning is to prolong the useful life expectancy of such trees and to reduce their hazard potential. This type of pruning removes damaged, diseased or lopped branches back to undamaged or healthy tissue. The final cut may not necessarily be at the branch collar. The aim is to induce the production of epicormic shoots from which a new crown is intended to be established. To achieve this, regrowth should be managed by reduction pruning or crown
thinning.

NOTES:

1 This type of pruning should be done in several stages in an attempt to induce stable and successful regrowth.
2 Consideration should be given to removing dangerous trees.
3 Remedial pruning may create hazards from weak branch attachment. Trees should be carefully monitored.

Did you read the PDF by David Evans from UK, Pruned to Death?

In the attached picture is a group of trees damaged by the storm.

Tree 1 on the left is a black wattle, they don't re shoot period, that tree should be removed now.

Tree 2 on the right was a spotty gum, notice it was cut back to a pole and died, should have been cut right down in the first place.

Tree 3 in the background is a grey gum, entire canopy busted off and throwing large amounts of epicormics ... should also be removed. The whole lot should go, end of story.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Those would have been a removal on any crew I've worked on. I don't think any tree I worked for Guy looked like that when I was done either. When I say significant portion of the canopy, I'm talking 30-40%; not 100%.

I will concede that the ten inch stub scenario we are stuck on is pushing the limits; but I still say that it is an option for managing a tree that has been severely damaged. What is the stem:trunk ratio, health of the tree, available sunlight, likelihood of a return visit....

The "good" picture that guy shows is more like what I practice.

As for your "I spotted this tree which featured both target cuts and Meilleur-folie cuts " the rotten stub does not look like it was likely a nodal cut.

I take it you are in a dryer climate than I; here that would have wetwood seepage from under the hardened outer layer of dry wood.

Now say there are five or six of these on one side of the tree, and the limb is 30 ft out with no substantial bifurcations after the breaks. I would trim them to a node, especially if the points of origin were in close proximity.

 

[Ekka]

Our rainfall here is average 1200mm a year but this year a lot more fell and it mainly falls in summer.