Cable is girdling Ash - any hope?

[NebClimber]

A homeowner cabled his own Ash about 10 years ago. The cable loops around two main stems. Over the years, the tree has grown around the cable. The cable has girdled about 40 to 50 percent of the circumference of each stem.

The canopy of both stems are now dying.

A third stem was not incorporated into the cabling, and is doing well.

My assumption is that both stems are doomed to die.

Will the tree grow around these girdling wounds, and eventually reconnect on the other side and establish productive xylem and phloem? Or is the tree forever girdled?

Steven

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

I agree that a tree girdled will usually die, but then why does a tree growing in a fence row often grow around wire fence and reconnect on the other side?

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
why does a tree growing in a fence row often grow around wire fence and reconnect on the other side?

Mike, is it reconnecting sap flow outside the cable? Is the only way for this to happen that the tree makes acids that dissolve the fence wire (my present theory)?

It's a lot to ask a tree for it to dissolve heavy cable. Steven, I'd cut the cable and pull it off everywhere you can without injuring the bark too much. Then return in november to cut into the lapped-over bark in spots and remove the cable there. The thought is that the tree will regrow conducting tissue in those spots, a little more every year.

If the trunks are less than 50% girdled, I think they have a good chance. As always, pictures would help a lot.

ps did you get the videos yet?

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

No Guy, the wire will be inside the tree, going in one side and out the other.

 

[Stumper]

The big issues seem to be the tree's original vigor and the degree of girdling. One third of the diameter being girdled will frequently allow the tree to survive and bridge the wire- enclosing it . A chokered wire around the full diameter will usuaaly result in death-but I have seen a few that grew fast enough that they,swelled bridged and survived.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Stumper
I have seen a few that grew fast enough that they,swelled bridged and survived.

So by "bridged", you mean that bark grew over the wire and conducted sap outside of it? I don't care how fast the tree grows, I cannot picture how this fusion/grafting takes place.

It would require sap flowing through bark, wouldn't it? How can that happen? O and Mike, how are you sure the wire can't be dissolved?

 

[Ax-man]

Mike is right, once a tree girdles wire, cable, chains and even old farm machinery it remains in the wood. The only way to get it out of the wood is to burn it out, or let the wood rot away.

Larry

 

[glens]

I was once taking out an ash and thought I'd hit one of those steel "T"-shaped fence posts very near the center on my back cut.  As it turns out, it was merely an 1½" long piece of fence wire that was laying horizontally in the wood with both ends going vertical for a ¼".  If I'd have cut ½" up or down I'd have missed it.  It was just outside of center on a 24" DBH stem, so in ash (don't remember if it was green or white) at least, wire doesn't become something else.  At least not in 60 or so years.

Glen

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Originally posted by Guy Meilleur


It would require sap flowing through bark, wouldn't it? How can that happen? O and Mike, how are you sure the wire can't be dissolved?

I didn't mean wire can't be dissolved, just that it doesn't have to dissolve.
As for sap flowing through bark, it doesn't. Think about how a donut forms around a cut limb. While the hole closes in the wood, it fuses back together to form an unbroken sheet of wood.
Curious about this, I once asked an expert speaker how this works. He was a big guy and he wrapped his arm around me and gave me a big hug and said, "Pressure!"
This same thing happens when two surfaces meet anywhere on the woody part of the tree. As long as there is enough pressure, grafting can take place.
Interestingly, roots graft very often because the soil prevents them from moving away from each other when the come in contact. We are learning this first hand as we watch thousands upon thousands of Oaks and Elms die from root transmission of fungal wilt diseases transmitted through root grafts. If two mature trees are a hundred feet apart, and the same speices, they are most likely connected.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Trees don't dissolve wire.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Yea, the picture posting is down.

Whassup, Darin???

 

[jimmyq]

If one found the to bark layers touching after growing around an object, could one make a wound in the bark of the two layers that would be very close to one another and perhaps create a pathway for grafting of tissue and reconnection of vascular tissue?

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
He was a big guy and he wrapped his arm around me and gave me a big hug and said, "Pressure!"
This same thing happens when two surfaces meet anywhere on the woody part of the tree. As long as there is enough pressure, grafting can take place.

If it was the guy I'm thinking of, that hug would REALLY have driven home the message!
I believe it. Trees are amazing.
As for wounding to facilitate this process, hmmm, sounds like cutting a hole to drain a cavity. Tho I'd be much less leery about experimenting with scraping a little bark.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Originally posted by jimmyq
If one found the to bark layers touching after growing around an object, could one make a wound in the bark of the two layers that would be very close to one another and perhaps create a pathway for grafting of tissue and reconnection of vascular tissue?

I think that is the jist of Bob W.'s work with repairing bad crotches.

 

[glens]

$20 says in 100 years you'll never know the wire is in there unless you hit it with a saw.

Glen

 

[M.D. Vaden]

I had heard that if it's this bad, and it's going to be kept, just go ahead and wrap cables around the trunk every 16".

That way when it dies and falls in the future, it will just break into a pile of firewood length pieces as it hits the ground.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

MM's right, Wulkie enlightened me to the idea. Makes perfect sense and trees do that sometimes and survive nicely. Growing aorund fence fabric and chain is easier for the tree because of the intermittent contact.

If the tree is sound, install a proper cable system higher in the tree. then cut away the old cable as much as possible. You might be able to go in and slice some of the buried cable if it's still visible using a four inch angle grinder with an abrasive cut-off wheel. You have to balance the damage that you might do with the cut-off wheel to the damage the cable will do if it isn't split into pieces.

Tom

 

[jimmyq]

MM and Tom, the wounding idea was in fact from Bob, I discussed it briefly with him last year... Havent had a chance to try it yet.

 

[SilverBlue]

Even if the tree grows around the wire how does one judge the structural integrity?
Neb have you made certain that the top dieback is not due to other circumstances?

 

[Curtis James]

I feel as though you can judge how well the tree can compartmentalize the injury, by how soon it will be growing new wood over the sustained injury or object. If the entire tree or limb is being girdled then no chance. if it is on just one side as opposed to all the way around your odds are better. I took a class and they brought in a sample section of a tree that had completally swallowed a post for a barb wire fence. I think it was a hedge apple. It was really neat to see. This teacher had all sorts of things like this finished and a few with hinges so we could swing the samples open and see what was going on in the inside of the different parts. I learned alot from that.