Deodar Cedar Cabling?

[daveyclimber]

I am bidding a Massive Deodar Cedar tree tomorrow. Competing bids are in the 10k range to mearly thin the tree which i see as a waste of time not to mention wrong in my opinion. This tree is on the order of 6+ ft DBH with an approximate height of 80ft. The problem is the limbs are breaking from the weight and has caused a hazard to the public. I am positive "thinning" this tree will not fix the issue at hand. I think the tree will be ugly and left damaged. My idea is to selectivley remove crossovers, dead limbs and compromised limbs and cable many of the at risk limbs. Can these trees be cabled effectivley? Any idea how much material we are talking about? Anyonje have ideas and pics of conifers that have been cabled? Thanks

 

[coydog]

post some pics
end weight reduction may be just the ticket if branches are breaking under their own weight, be careful about removing crossers as they can sometimes create a support structure for each other. Cabling is an option for codominant leads, but should not take over as a support structure, I am hesitant to recomend cabling as a solution to anything without seeing the tree.10k for a prune must be a big tree, 6' dbh 80'tall sound like a pretty normal deodor to me. deodors are strong and should be able to accomodate the weight of their limbs, I would not recommend cabling limbs, This tree can most likely be restored by proper pruning, "merely thinning" as you put it could mean a lot of different things, and if done by an unskilled climber will definitely leave the tree ugly and worse off, especially if that means stripping all the inner canopy and lionstailing what's left ( the gut n' go method), but without seeing the tree, one can only guess...

 

[rbtree]

coydog, spot on analysis....though cabling (I use Cobra.) may be an option for some limbs.

Daveyclimber, I wish you could post some pics. I've worked on some large cedrus trees over the years, up to 4-5 feet dbh. can't imagine any cedrus taking more than one day to prune for 2-3 climbers...that would be $2000-3000. If you land the job, I'd love to work on it.

I am crown cleaning and doing some endweight reduction on a 70 foot, 3 foot dbh deodar next week. It is kind of sparse, so won't be that much work. Only bid $650. We did two firs yesterday for about $800, 110 and 125 footers....had to shorten a bunch of limbs, which is not easy! And doesn't always look great, but need to be done sometimes. Unlike the danged lions tailing that bozo outfits like Eve*green are doing to our urban forest.

The 250 foot redwood (The Tree House) that we pruned with Jerry Beranek and all star cast would have been maybe $40,000 if most of the labor wasn't donated....but it was the largest tree that's ever been pruned, I'm sure.

Interested in that story, go to the B uzz and search, that was were the best discussion took place.