Large Red Oak?

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
This cut is into living tissue and the heart of the tree is now exposed.

Not yet it's not. Will codit walls seal? More likely to if roots are invigorated.

I like the way you made the cut to a collar (looked like wrinkles to me) a little further from the trunk than the other collars. I call that a burl in the making; the more stem tissue retained the better.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Originally posted by Guy Meilleur
Dead branches on trees are channels for decay even more than a collar cut.

I tend to think of branches like a box of straws, the vascular bundles of the limb allow free movement lengthwise, much like a box of straws would allow water to flow end to end.
On an intact limb, those straws are all closed at both ends. Once you make a cut, they are all open.
Fungi can move quickly down those straws. We work on DED trees and get to do some bark tracing. The staining can move 6 feet or more in a day.
I've also worked in trees where when I cut a limb, I could hear a faint little whisle, because the saw broke the tension and fluids were pulled back by gravity.
The longer the tree has to set up barriers, the better. I feel leaving the branch reduces the chances of introducing wood decay fungi into the trunk, past protection zones.

Originally posted by Guy Meilleur
Yes dying branches are sending resources back to the rest of the tree...

I'm glad to see this in print. Are you comming around to my side or what?

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Mike Maas
Are you comming around to my side or what?

This is what, the tenth go-round on the pruning/reducing debate?
Compared to wulkie you're very flexible and open-minded. Another ten and we may be thick as thieves.

I don't work on DED trees in zone 4 so I run into more cases where deadwood removal does more good than harm. The main thing is, we both think about the effects before we cut (most of the time:blush: ), and pay attention and respect to the tree as a whole, and that's the name of the game.

 

[TheSurgeon]

trolling

So MB, you wanna talk about trolling eh? You're talking about reading through conversation without a reply, right? How about I jump into the middle of a conversation with a non-related subject like-let's say picture quality.......