Retrim old stubs on Honey Locust?

[moss]

I'm doing some deadwood hazard pruning on a Honey Locust. About 8 years ago the tree was hacked on a pruning job. Whoever did the work left 2 ft. stubs on some 10" or so diameter limbs. At this point would it help or hurt the tree to trim the stubs correctly closer to the branch collar? The tree is 90+ feet and is old but healthy for its age. It's a slow grower now and is no longer producing many thorns or any fruit. I'm figuring for an older tree any cut into live wood must be considered as to risk/benefit for the tree.
-moss

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

It should be very easy to distinguish dead from living tissue, so go ahead and cut off the dead, only if it can be done without nicking the live stuff.
The end result will be more esthetically pleasing, and one could even argue that it will reduce the amount of new wood it takes to grow over the wound and thereby help the tree.
There are unsubstantiated claims that by reducing the volume of this dead wood, it somehow reduces the vigor and/or populations of wood decay fungi present, and therefor reduces the chance that CODIT will fail, but there is no proof of this, in the form of peer reviewed studies.
My intuition tells me that getting the wound to close is important to hide it from uninformed minds, who then try to solve the (non)problem by doing crazy things like topping or unnecessary crown reductions, adding hole fillers, and applying all sorts of weird coverings.

 

[moss]

It should be very easy to distinguish dead from living tissue, so go ahead and cut off the dead, only if it can be done without nicking the live stuff.

Trimming back closer to the collar will hit live tissue, the branches trimmed were originally live. I guess that's why it's a tough decision. On aesthetics alone it's a no-brainer. For an older tree does the stress of cutting live tissue outweigh aesthetics?

 

[OTG BOSTON]

Got any pics AJ?
Usually when a branch is stubbed off you will see a very definitive line between live callous tissue and deadwood or the stub will sucker out.

 

[treeseer]

It should be very easy to distinguish dead from living tissue, so go ahead and cut off the dead, only if it can be done without nicking the live stuff.
The end result will be more esthetically pleasing, and one could even argue that it will reduce the amount of new wood it takes to grow over the wound and thereby help the tree.
There are unsubstantiated claims that by reducing the volume of this dead wood, it somehow reduces the vigor and/or populations of wood decay fungi present, and therefor reduces the chance that CODIT will fail, but there is no proof of this, in the form of peer reviewed studies.
My intuition tells me that getting the wound to close is important to hide it from uninformed minds, who then try to solve the (non)problem by doing crazy things like topping or unnecessary crown reductions, adding hole fillers, and applying all sorts of weird coverings.

I generally agree with Mike, except for the last part. Closure is important to the tree, no matter what his biased intuition tells him about people. I think he's been hit upside the head by pink boards a few too many times.:deadhorse:

The ISA Glossary definition of "branch collar" is the area where branch and trunk tissues overlap. It's unusual when you have stem tissue growing out on those branch stubs, but I would look for wrinkles or bulges indicating stem tissue and cut just outside the last one. This would be a collar cut, even if it's several inches or even a foot or more away from the stem and the original collar.

I think it's ok to cut off living branch tissue. I also think it's ok to leave a long stub wrapped in stem tissue, a burl-in-the-making. There is a balance between leaving a lot of rot and cutting off too muchlive tissue that gets a little tricky. My goals would be smaller wounds and faster closure.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Trimming back closer to the collar will hit live tissue, the branches trimmed were originally live. I guess that's why it's a tough decision. On aesthetics alone it's a no-brainer. For an older tree does the stress of cutting live tissue outweigh aesthetics?

In that case, if it were my tree I would leave the stub. If it's a customer tree, I would explain that it is best for the tree to leave them, and as Guy mentioned, they are actually interesting.
A more mature tree will take less of these these abuses than a younger tree.
The stress and abuses an urban tree can take are far less than your average country tree, because the stresses are cumulative.
It may seem minor to take a small amount of living tissue and leave a wound, but add that to all the other stress factors the tree already has living around people, and add that to the ones it may have in the future, and this trimming could be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.