Any "ethical" ways to practice spiking up trees?

[WannabeFireFaller]

Been a beginner climber for the past few months and while I sometimes get to practice at work (2x at less than 25ft), I'm looking for more ways to get experience in.

I figure I could find a dead-ish tree in the woods somewhere and tie in to a nearby live tree to practice getting used to spiking at heights. My manager mentioned to me that he would just choose a random tree hidden in the woods and I'd assume you'd go back to the same one each time so you're not ****ing up dozens of trees. Maybe a younger tree with thick bark so it could recover more easily?

 

[WannabeFireFaller]

One of my bigger issues is dealing with empty space at heights and feeling unstable so the more experience I can get with spiking at heights the better I should get at overcoming that hangup I figure

 

[WannabeFireFaller]

As luck would have it, I was given a dead white pine to climb today and was able to get up 40 or so feet before we tied a pull rope on and dropped the rest of it. Pretty iffy but a little more confidence at least.

 

[gumneck]

@WannabeFireFaller
Whatever tree you find to climb, putting a rope in a suitable crotch first and using that as your safety may give you some confidence or at least peace of mind.
Maybe you are already doing that, no idea, but it helps and gives you the tied in twice routine that is a good thing.

For what's its worth, SYP doesn't seem to have an issue with being spiked and dieing. At least not for me that I have seen but others may have different experiences in different parts of the country. On the midAtlantic coast, they keep growing on the ones I have hacked into.

 

[WannabeFireFaller]

@WannabeFireFaller
Whatever tree you find to climb, putting a rope in a suitable crotch first and using that as your safety may give you some confidence or at least peace of mind.
Maybe you are already doing that, no idea, but it helps and gives you the tied in twice routine that is a good thing.

For what's its worth, SYP doesn't seem to have an issue with being spiked and dieing. At least not for me that I have seen but others may have different experiences in different parts of the country. On the midAtlantic coast, they keep growing on the ones I have hacked into.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[ATH]

You can spike your own trees all you want...if I don't think it acceptable to do that to someone else's without permission. There are certainly managed woods with low grade trees that the owner wouibe OK with you practicing on and then they'll remove later...but just get permission.

Southern pine beetle is attracted to wounds in trees. If I had a pine plantation that's the last kind of tree I'd let someone damage and leave standing...

 

[capetrees]

Black locust has a thick bark and doesn't seem to affect the tree if live spiked once or twice.

 

[thenne1713]

LOOK UP, FIND DEAD TREES, THEN speak to owner?

 

[Husky_Dawg]

I'm always leery of climbing dead trees. My buddy and I took a tall (dead) pine down a week ago, and when it hit the ground, half the bark popped off the trunk... we both looked at each other and said the same thing "glad we didn't try and climb that one!" .

 

[TheJollyLogger]

I'm always leery of climbing dead trees. My buddy and I took a tall (dead) pine down a week ago, and when it hit the ground, half the bark popped off the trunk... we both looked at each other and said the same thing "glad we didn't try and climb that one!" .

Half the trees I've climbed were dead, that's why they called me in the first place.

 

[northmanlogging]

One of my bigger issues is dealing with empty space at heights and feeling unstable so the more experience I can get with spiking at heights the better I should get at overcoming that hangup I figure

go find some videos on limb walking, DRT and or SRT (dual rope technique/Single rope technique)
in general though if its a half dead tree, its soon to be a completely dead tree so don't worry about spiking up, just take the whole thing down.

 

[Fearless]

You can spike your own trees all you want...if I don't think it acceptable to do that to someone else's without permission. There are certainly managed woods with low grade trees that the owner wouibe OK with you practicing on and then they'll remove later...but just get permission.

Southern pine beetle is attracted to wounds in trees. If I had a pine plantation that's the last kind of tree I'd let someone damage and leave standing...

Stressed trees emit ethylene gas and this is what bugs home in on. Gaff wounds on healthy trees do not make the tree any more susceptible to insect attacks.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Stressed trees emit ethylene gas and this is what bugs home in on. Gaff wounds on healthy trees do not make the tree any more susceptible to insect attacks.

Yeah, no way stabbing a bunch of holes in a tree is going to cause stress... which would cause it to emit ethylene... attracting insects to all these new convenient points of entry...

 

[BeatCJ]

I learned to climb on power poles for work, but with short gaffs.
What is this safety rope of which you speak? Things were different 45 years ago.

Funny, I saw the title of the thread and was thinking of the Earth First type of spiking.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

Stressed trees emit ethylene gas and this is what bugs home in on. Gaff wounds on healthy trees do not make the tree any more susceptible to insect attacks.

For once I am truly hoping this is an AI bot...

 

[ATH]

For once I am truly hoping this is an AI bot...

I was thinking that could be the case. Strange thread to dig up just to display ignorance.

 

[pdqdl]

Stressed trees emit ethylene gas and this is what bugs home in on. Gaff wounds on healthy trees do not make the tree any more susceptible to insect attacks.

Shigo, the arborist who mostly formed our more modern notions about what good arboriculture is, had a different opinion. He stated that all damage to a tree is cumulative. Any damage to the cambium is additive, and if you get enough, it influences the ability of the tree to survive. Add to that, any open wound in a tree is an easy starting point for a new infection, whether or not ethylene gas is a luring agent to the wound site.

"Wounds and Compartmentalization​

If trees can compartmentalize wounds, then how can wounds lead to starvation? Trees must store energy reserves in living cells. Parenchyma cells in sapwood store energy reserves. Sapwood has many living cells. When wood is wounded, compartmentalization starts. The boundaries not only wall​

off the pathogen, but they wall off cells that normally store energy reserves. So long as the tree has time to generate new cells in new spatial positions, all will be fine for the tree. But, when wounds repeat faster than the generation processes, then the tree will be in trouble.​

​

When energy reserves are low, many opportunistic pathogens spread rapidly in the tree.​

What does this mean for the working tree person?​

1. Wounds must be prevented...​

https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/mitgc/article/1986106.pdf​

 

[pdqdl]

I found this applicable quote:

"Ethylene is not a universal attractant for all insects that are parasitic on trees.​

Ethylene is a plant hormone that plays important roles in plant development, ripening of fruits, and stress responses. While some insects can detect and respond to ethylene released by plants, this response is not universal across all tree-parasitic insect species.
Here are some key points about ethylene and its effects on tree-parasitic insects:

1. Bark beetles: Some bark beetle species, like the mountain pine beetle, are attracted to ethylene released by stressed or damaged trees. The ethylene signals a suitable host tree.
2. Wood-boring insects: Ethylene can attract certain wood-boring insect pests like ambrosia beetles and some weevil species to trees releasing the hormone due to injury or disease.
3. Fruit flies: Ethylene produced during fruit ripening attracts fruit flies and other frugivorous insects, but this is less relevant for tree parasites.
4. Plant response: Ethylene can induce defense responses in plants, potentially making them less attractive to certain herbivorous insects.
5. Species-specific: The attraction or repellence to ethylene is highly species-specific and depends on the insect's biology and host preferences.

Many other chemical cues like pheromones, host volatiles, and primary attractants play more significant roles in host location for most tree-parasitic insects than ethylene alone.
So while ethylene can be an important signal for some bark beetles and wood borers, it is not a universally attractive or repellent compound across all insects that feed on or infest trees. The responses vary greatly by insect species and life stage."

Also:

"Here are a few examples of trees that do not significantly produce the ethylene hormone:​

1. Conifers: Most coniferous trees like pines, firs, spruces, and cedars produce extremely low levels of ethylene compared to angiosperms (flowering plants). Ethylene production is negligible in healthy, unstressed conifers.
2. Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba):The ancient ginkgo tree species does not produce any detectable amounts of ethylene, even during seed development.
3. Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens):The tall redwood trees native to coastal California produce virtually undetectable ethylene levels.
4. Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii):This important coniferous tree species is another very low to non-ethylene producer.
5. Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum):No significant ethylene production has been reported in this deciduous conifer tree.

The key reason many gymnosperms (non-flowering seed plants) like conifers do not produce ethylene is that they do not rely on the hormone for fruit ripening, abscission, or other ethylene-related developmental processes like angiosperms do. However, ethylene can still be produced in response to severe stresses like wounding, bacterial infections or environmental conditions in some of these trees. But under normal circumstances, ethylene biosynthesis is negligible or completely absent in certain tree species.

 

[pdqdl]

Much more information here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9460115/

This article is very heavy on biochemistry, and notably light on practical advice for arborists. Still, some of you guys might like to take a peek at it, just to improve your understanding of how much is known and studied on this relatively narrow topic. Its primary focus is to summarize the knowledge about Ethylene biochemistry in plants, which is heavily weighted towards food crops.

Some statements:

• Under drought stress conditions, an increased level of ethylene or stress ethylene has been reported in...
• ...studies suggested that salt stress enhances ethylene biosynthesis, but this was stress ethylene that had to be brought down to an optimum level favoring plant photosynthesis and growth...
• A heavy metal-induced increase in ethylene production has been reported in several plant species...
• Heat stress may induce or reduce ethylene formation, depending on the activation or suppression of ACS activity...
• It has been noted that, during flooding, the limitation of gas diffusion results in O2 shortage and accumulation of ethylene in flooded tissues, and results in the formation of...
• ...However, reports of decreased ethylene production under certain stresses have been reported, which makes the role of ethylene rather specific to the plant type, growth condition, timing, and organ under study...

My take on this NIH article: the complexity of the biochemistry among all the plants, stresses, and parasites that affect trees is far and away too complex to make any generalized statements about how spurring a tree may or may not affect whether or not the damage done will influence parasite attraction for any given tree. I think we would all do well to listen to the Ph.D. folks who have been studying these interactions for many years. My understanding currently is that for the best pruning results, we are told not to spur the trees, and that's good enough for me.

 

[pdqdl]

For once I am truly hoping this is an AI bot...

Hard to say. Time will tell. His "About" information seems plausible, and this is certainly a part of the world where spur climbing is widely accepted. In this area, if you try climbing a tree without spurs, folks presume you don't know what you are doing, and just don't have the right equipment.

Honestly. I'm not making that up.