Need help with apple tree

[welby]

Hello I am new to the forum. My wife and garden quite a bit and enjoys trees very much. We have one apple tree on our property. I believe its diseased or at least part of it. I have a feeling we may have to cut some of it to save the entire tree. Can someone with experience please review the pictures and advise what to do. It looks like termite damage. Not sure what this exactly. We are new to the home and just discovered this. Any comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you kindly in advance.

walter

 

[sawinredneck]

Dan, I am asking here, is that lightning damage?
Andy

 

[sawinredneck]

Thank you Dan It just looked like lightning from my experience, which is limited.
Andy

 

[Bearclaw]

I second Tree Co on where to cut the apple tree. If you try to prune higher up, the tree will be imbalanced and with the remaining branch that now would be the new leader might die off, due to the fact that the damage might be more intensive than it appears.

 

[treeseer]

I agree. The decay began where a large branch was removed. The tissues below that branch starved and rotted. Trouble is, if you make the cut at the origin, that wound will be too big to seal, and decay also. If you make the cut further out, you will also have decay. There will be rot, no matter what.

This is a good illustration of why big branches should be shortened instead of removed. Even heading cuts to small diameter twigs would have been preferable, leading to less decay. Thanks for posting the pics.

Measure the circumference of the limbs at the two black lines that Professor TreeCo drew for you. Then measure the amount of those circumferences that are decayed, and post closeup pics of those areas. If the cut is made further out, will the end of that branch get much sun? This data will help determine which cut to make.

 

[buzz sawyer]

I second Tree Co on where to cut the apple tree. If you try to prune higher up, the tree will be imbalanced and with the remaining branch that now would be the new leader might die off, due to the fact that the damage might be more intensive than it appears.

All good advice. I'd bet there is some deep decay there.
Don't just cut from the top down. Make an undercut first, then finish on the top. That will prevent tearing.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

The problem with cutting the tree at the suggested line is the tree will look terrible. There will be a big hole in the crown for years.
It could also expose the tree to sunlight beating down on the trunk and cause sun scald.
The problem on the trunk was caused by a past removal of a large limb. See how the decay starts at the cut and moves down the stem?
Does it seem right to solve a problem by creating a bigger one in the future?
Our industry has standards to not remove large percentages of a tree's crown, especially an over mature tree like this one.
It does look like the branch is slowly decaying and may break and fall on its own at some point, so there are two approaches that don't require a chainsaw. If you're not on a spray program for Apple Scab, start one. This will keep the leaves green for the whole season, which means a healthier tree. It's possible it the tree can add new wood faster than the decay removes it.
The other approach is to go out to the tip of the limb and reduce the size of the branch. Use a hand pruner to remove shoots growing towards the center of the tree. Don't make big holes, you want it to look nice. This will allow shoots from the good half of the tree to grow in that direction.
If you trim a little each year off the bad section, and allow the good section to grow, eventually the bad branch can be removed without leaving a big hole in the crown, and the bad branch will be a much smaller percentage of the tree and it will have much less impact on the tree.

 

[a_lopa]

Im with mike on this one a bit of Guys "reduction" cuts would do the trick.

 

[rebelman]

A hole in the crown is not always bad aesthetics. It can allow you to see into the tree from a certain angle, giving better perspective and attractrive trunk bark patterns. If that's the only reason to go the more complicated route, go with treeco cut it off. I bet there is sufficient canopy left. A pro could trim a little on the good side too.

 

[Tree Machine]

A good thing to note here would be to look at, when it rains, where would the water land (ans. on the topside of an up-facing area), and which direction will water always flow? (ans. downhill).

Look at the picture again. The original cut was made topside and with the funky curve at the middle fork, the slope steepens.

This is a perfect example of a fungus (or fungi) with the best of both worlds; a fresh source of wood (new woundsite) and an area on the tree that will stay wetter, longer than other parts of the tree. Advantage, decay organisms. The well-meaning treeguy sets the the stage for a progressive, degenerative condition.

Upside wounding, or wounding on the side of the tree that most often takes the weather is the most susceptible, generally speaking. I've got more decay problems from past treeguys spikin up certain areas worse than others. I wonder if they dance up there, or what.


Just know this sort of thing in your pruning work, and don't cut into the branch collar. That's an instant 'in' for spores to germinate and take rapid hold. Before the tree can compatmentalize the wound, the fungal hyphae have penetrated past where a wall would have appeared. The race, for all practical purposes, is over and though the tree may thrive, parts of it will eventually fail, and then years later the tree.

The offending cut does look acceptable to me. This is just how tree biology and fungal biology works interact sometimes. Millions of years of evolution between trees and woot-rotting fungi leading to us to share this amazing moment of classic decay. :rockn:

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Yeah that's why it rotted, because of the direction of the cut...

The cut was too big, on a codominant stem, and had no shoots near or below the cut.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

A hole in the crown is not always bad aesthetics. It can allow you to see into the tree from a certain angle, giving better perspective and attractrive trunk bark patterns. If that's the only reason to go the more complicated route, go with treeco cut it off. I bet there is sufficient canopy left. A pro could trim a little on the good side too.

Asthetics is only half the reason, tree health is the other.

 

[treeseer]

Wow this is a weird thread;everybody is basically agreeing. opcorn:

TM is right on with the upside wound observation. That's why heading cuts are sometimes properer, as the ANSI Standards make clear.

Mike's gradual reduction idea--aka subordination--may be the way to go. I'd lash the decayed branch to that fork in the main stem too.

 

[buzz sawyer]

Good lesson

TreeMachine, Mike Maas, and TreeSeer, thanks for a great lesson on reading, predicting, and preventing damage. Just one more reason this is a great site.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Wow this is a weird thread;everybody is basically agreeing. opcorn:

Hold on a minute Guy, this thread isn't over yet.

TM is right on with the upside wound observation. That's why heading cuts are sometimes properer, as the ANSI Standards make clear.

Unless I'm reading him wrong, TM seems to be suggesting the reason the decay is running down the tree is because of the direction of the cut.
On this point I mostly disagree.
There are a whole host of reasons decay spreads.
The size of the injury, for example. A little injury will compartmentalize even if on the top side and gently misted 5 times a day, while a large wound on the bottom side of a branch that is painted and towel dried after each rain may rot extensively.
Another reason decay may spread is the age and health of the tree. We all know how much damage a young, fast growing tree can take, and how little an old, over mature tree can't take.
A tree needs ample starch reserves to successfully compartmentalize a wound. I like to think of it as the total healthy leaf surface area, compared to the total biomass of the tree. Older trees have comparatively small area of leaves compared to their massive structure. Starch reserves get low. Wounds can't close up.
Then, there is a bad cut, a co-dominant stem removal. TM mentioned it was cut into the collar, but there is no collar, so there is no existing, natural barrier to decay. The large branch that was removed, should have been slowly subordinated, then removed, if it had to be.
This Apple tree is over mature. Caution needs to be exercised if it is to survive. It is not growing in ideal conditions, small root area, competing with grass, and compacted urban soil.
It's not that there was a cut made on the top of the limb. It isn't a simple cause and effect. It's the whole combination of events and conditions.
Hey, you think we scared the homeowner off yet?

 

[Tree Machine]

Wow this is a weird thread;everybody is basically agreeing.

Unless I'm reading him wrong, TM seems to be suggesting the reason the decay is running down the tree is because of the direction of the cut.
On this point I mostly disagree.

Reading wrong. In this particular tree, because of the unique direction of the limb (not direction of the cut) and where the cut was made on the limb (topside), as well as in the shade, this unique set of circumstances allowed, can we say, for the planets to align in favor of the fungus. The fungus simply found a hospitable place to call home, a niche.

TM mentioned it was cut into the collar, but there is no collar

Again this is NOT what I said. I suggested to the readership, as a suggestion, that they don't cut into the collar.

Just know this sort of thing in your pruning work, and don't cut into the branch collar. That's an instant 'in' for spores to germinate and take rapid hold. Before the tree can compatmentalize the wound, the fungal hyphae have penetrated past where a wall would have appeared.

As far as the cut on the decayed limb, here is what I said, "The offending cut does look acceptable to me."

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

You see favorable conditions for fungus, I see failure to compartmentalize.

The area inside CODIT will almost always rot, it isn't important how fast it happens. What's important is that the CODIT walls hold strong.

 

[Tree Machine]

Biologically speaking, we have wound sites that turn into abscesses, which turn into cavities which turn into decay columns WHICH turn into hollows, limb failure, tree failure, etc. The tree can be thriving in perfectly good health, all CODIT walls successfully laid down, yet the tree is hollow. The tree continues to live, and do very well, until parts, or it itself comes down.

Full-on decay doesn't mean CODIT walls have necessarily been breached. It just means fungus has found it's way into the sapwood and / or heartwood and has taken up residence within it's food source. Pretty good trick, don't ya think?

 

[Tree Machine]

You see favorable conditions for fungus, I see failure to compartmentalize.

Mike, I see failure to compartmentalize. The important wall can be envisioned like this. A limb on a tree naturally dies. Spores land on the surface of the limb, over time germinate, begin as tiny wite strands, growing along like a thread, and then it forks. It's little tip has enzymes that attack the wood, breaking it down so that the fungus can take what it wants, nutrients and energy. On the overall surface of a limb, it takes a fairly long time for the fungal spore to germinate and take hold before the elements of nature kill it (mainly, drying-out once germinated).

So while the fungus is doing this to the naturally died limb the tree is laying down an interdependent series of CODIT walls. The most important that I can see is the one right behind the branch collar. Once that limb died, the tree's response was to cut off the plumbing to that no longer useful part (my words). And put up "chemical and physical changes in the wood" (Shigo's words) that prevent the entry of fungus to enter into the sapwood and heartwood. The tree readies itself by doing this, while the fungus increases it's mass, colonizing the limb, or hospitable parts of it. As the fungus softens the dead limb near the branch collar (usually more moist there), the limb eventually breaks off under it's own weight, often where the fungal growth had been most active.

In a natural setting, untouched by man, over the last few billion years, this is how fungus and tree interact. The tree, having had time to prepare itself for the eventual fall of this dead limb, made physical and chemical chances to itself, just inside the tree. Limb falls. Fungus uses up the little food left in the pocket, has no more, dies, or drys out and dies. Either way, a CODIT wall is what is stopping the fungus from further invasion.

All the while an outer ring of callus tissue forms, more and more every growing season until the callus mass all meets, covering over the top of the site. This is a successful CODIT process, beginning to end, in one paragraph. This can take years.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

TM, you are confusing wound closure with CODIT.

There are three basic types of defenses trees have to slow decay.

First, are those defenses set up before the injury. Those include things like annual growth rings, chemical changes in xylem that change it to heartwood, and branch collars.

Second, are the reactive changes. These are the four walls of CODIT (Many thanks to treedictionary.com).

Third, are the defenses that occur in some time after an injury. Things like woundwood, epicormic growth, the closure of the open wound so the injury is no longer visible to persons looking at the tree*, and reallocation of energy reserves from growth, to decay prevention.

*Not seeing the decay inside the tree in no way stops it, or even slows it down. You just can't see it anymore.