Pine Trees in my back yard

[Guy Meilleur]

Ken I think you are right but I know of no condition (and I worked in WI for years too) where the smallest possible wound is not the best idea.

an open mind to all pieces of the puzzle, yes indeedy!

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Let's imagine you have two boards, 10 feet long and all painted up pink, to seal them up.
Now, one board gets two feet broken off, leaving a jagged end, and the other board has three feet cut off with a chainsaw.

Now, we wait. Then make a cut on both boards at the 6' 6" mark.

It seems counter-intuitive that the broken board will have more decay than the cut board to the left of the cut line.
Although the jagged end has areas that are better for fungus, it also has a greater distance to move. Once the fungus gets past the jagged area, it meets the exact same challenges fungus face with the cut end.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Example tilted a lil'bit i think; as the dedcay would have gotten to accelerated stages, not infiltrating in a straight line, and be given protection(from longer torn end) when getting near your line i think.

i've troubled on how to slow decay down to less positive compartmentalizing trees on larger cuts leaving large 'stobs' (especially as Mike has brought it up over time) to stave off decay; even coming back a year or so later and making more decisions, cutting the rot back, and making it start all over etc. (but having left a clean wound to start). i began to wonder which was worse that, or the 'serial wounding'; and (mostly Water Oaks) trees i tried it on, were already suspected troublesome, so maybe not real fair, scientific and luckily not usually too many places to try (though storm mighta changed that!). Never saw great benefit.

So, i guess i wimped out and went back into the cave of accepted notions, to at least watch from!

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Mike, that's a creative response scenario. Here's what I see, if we make your boards two branches of a pink tree:

Imagine the red line is where nodes are. At the very minute the top board is pruned back to the target, boundaries start forming. Callus forms at the meristem (scar tissue forms on the outer edge).Other codit responses take place. Latent buds at the node are released, and as they grow the callus grows too, and added resources are available to the other codit responses as well.

Meanwhile on branch #2 of our pink tree, Decay fungi, moisture, acidic pollutants are dumped on the wound constantly. They make inroads into the stub through cracks, and the pathogen's numbers and momentum build. Decay and disease race down to the node where the red line is.

The tissue beyond the red line continues to get water. Latent or adventitious buds on the stub may sprout. All this activity beyond the red line--does it inhibit the codit response at the node? A strong Maybe is my guess.

"Once the fungus gets past the jagged area, it meets the exact same challenges fungus face with the cut end."

Here's where your scenario breaks down. The pink boards are a classic case of an artifice, as Shigo talked about. The challenges that decay fungi face at nodes with increasing branch protection zones are FAR greater than in internodes where no such clearly visible and documented physical and chemical barriers exist.

That said, with small ends on lateral branches I do follow the waitandsee approach to save time. But everywhere within reach a judgment and a cut are made. YOur stockbroker scenario left out the fact that we can know where the nodes are; the signs are very clear. Where the BEST nodes are, yes, that takes some guesswork.

But an educated guess is better that abandoning the tree to the forces of death and decay. Leaving jagged stubs is counterintuitive (for me and the client), and counter to the literature as I read it. If the tree that had the waitandsee treatment should fail sometime in the future, I would be . Sadder yet if a charge of negligence was made.