Should these trees be removed?

[Mainer 1]

I am almost 100% sure that I want to have these maples removed. But if someone knowledgable said there may be a way to keep them in place with a reasonable degree of safety, I would listen. Two of the three trunks have hollows that appear to compromise the structural integrity. And since these are so close to the house, there is a real danger of damage to people and property. The trunk on the right shed a big upper branch in a storm last year. But otherwise the trees seem healthy with no dead branches and plenty of leaf cover.

Thanks much for any help you can provide.

 

[Lumberjack]

Codominant leaders, included bark, large areas of decay, and its close to both the house and transmission lines.

I would vote they come down.

 

[jason j ladue]

get 'em outta there. i am not an automatic advocate for removal, but if that were my house, that thing would be gone already... good luck.

 

[chipper]

amen, take er' down

 

[topnotchtree]

The trees look like they are near power lines. Make your first call to your power company and see if they can remove any limbs near the wires. This may save you a little money when you hire the rest of the trees removed. The sooner the better!

 

[alanarbor]

Probably because they know the difference between a tree that truly has no future, and one that can be maintained if the owner wishes. This one, however, is a serious candidate for removal.

 

[Newfie]

real suprised none of the treehuggers here haven't beaked of about trying to save this garbage

Never happy!

 

[treeseer]

Pic 1 shows an old codominant tearout. It has a lot of scar tissue formed, and research shows that this woundwood is 40% stronger than regular wood.
It is the lack of lower limbs to dampen the motion and the lack of neighboring trees to share the wind that might push this one to a removal.

The second decay shot looks worse, because that huge wound was made by a (utility clearance man's?) saw, but how much worse? Five minutes with a claw hammer digging out the rot will show the % of cross-section that is decayed. If it is 2/3 hollow, it has only lost 1/3 of its strength. But like the first, this one has been abused by men with saws and is top-heavy.

What could be huge assets may be liabilities, all because of overpruning.

Included bark is a minor issue if cabling is possible.
It's not hazardous enough for many utility foresters to take down, but it never hurts to ask.

 

[Old Monkey]

If it is 2/3 hollow, it has only lost 1/3 of its strength. .

Is that true, or is that a typo? Isn't strength loss directional too?

My, my what a testy thread!

 

[Stumper]

Monkey, Even that 1/3 for 2/3 rule is conservative. Remember that a cylinder loses litle strength compared to a solid section The outermost material does most of the work in bearing tension/compression loads. I agree with most here-I would remove the tree if it were mine. I also agree with Guy.-Most of that tree's problems were either entirely manmade or exacerbated by humans.

 

[Old Monkey]

Treeseer and Stumper, I'm learning from you guys. Thanks!

Has anyone ever tried inserting a foreign material in the living tissue near a weak point in the tree to try to get the tree to grow more there? Does that make sense?

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Here's a strength loss chart:

 

[a_lopa]

where does soil,tree grouping,tree health come into it???or are we clutching at straws again

 

[Mainer 1]

Interesting thread

I appreciate the feedback, guys. Sounds like even the "treehuggers" (which is probably what I would be if I were a professional arborist) have qualms about leaving this one for various reasons. The strength loss chart was interesting and makes sense. Even if these trees are mostly hollow, the fact that they haven't come down in recent 60+ mph winds shows that they have a lot of strength left. The problem is, when that wind is howling and that tree is right outside your bedroom window swaying, you don't want to be worrying about whether the tree has 80% of its strength or only 50%.

 

[Ekka]

Well how appropriate.

It's 7.36pm on Monday and I just finished a seminar with David Evans from UK and Jill Pokorny from US.

Treeseer, some new stuff too.

The cavity rule pretty well stays at 30% remaining wall thickness, that's if you have a stem without cracks or openings. For stems with openings greater than 30% of the circumference the minimum is now 66% remaining wall thickness. And like I read on this site suggested by some-one if you have to drill to determine, only drill the depth required because we are only interested in the healthy wood.

So as clearly seen in these photos the opening is more like 50% or more. Wall thickness doesn't look any where near the 2/3 's required.

Target is house and lines so this tree has to go.

 

[treeseer]

The cavity rule pretty well stays at 30% remaining wall thickness, that's if you have a stem without cracks or openings. For stems with openings greater than 30% of the circumference the minimum is now 66% remaining wall thickness.

Ekka, were the rules presented as flexible? Did they mention extra strength from woundwood, species variation or crown shape as factors that make walls that measure under these thresholds adequate to hold the tree up? Did they mention work that can lessen risk to an acceptable level, such as pruning and root invigoration?

If not, their rules are worse than none at all. We work with resilient, dynamic organisms. If we ignore that and hold tight to numbers and formulae, we are driven crazy by data envy and committing malpractice.


Re drilling, if there is an opening, there is no need to drill; just reach in and measure.

 

[Ekka]

Treeseer

Yeah, there's a whole bag of tricks. But ultimately risk is relevant to targets. Risk can be reduced with all the available options but when the targets are for instance a heavily trafficked footpath etc then consideration has to be placed on safety. Also they consider the recovery of the tree, if it's inevitable that it's a dud well out she comes.

We studied some real cases of crown reduction etc on trees with heavy decay and ultimately they died! Crown reduction is the worst thing to do especially to mature trees, crown thinning is better providing it's done properly.

Some fascinating bio science came out that made both Erk and Klauss look pretty bad with their crown reduction ideas ... something I've always thought.

Did you know that making conditions really good, such as fertilizing and watering actually impedes the trees ability to CODIT. The tree will sacrifice CODIT and prefer tip growth. The optimum being a medium balance, some stress from root environment such as nutrient and water apparently erks the tree to CODIT better, it looks after what it's got rather than getting gready for more dominance and growth. So you need that middle of the road balance.

This is the priority that a tree expends it's energy resources ....

1/ Foliage and buds
2/ Roots
3/ Reproduction
4/ Stem storage
5/ Diameter growth
6/ Wound healing

It's the trees last priority to heal wounds. So when you prune in any way guess what happens (look above) and if the tree is already defective guess what you've just done? They called it "pruned to death"

It was ????ed good confirmation of what I believed in anyway. After you've worked on trees for a while and educated yourself with "current" information you find now the science is catching up.

Crown thins are better than crown reductions. You must differentiate between old and young trees etc, what you do in formative pruning on a 10 year old tree is totally different from what you'd do to a 100 year old one etc. The ability of the tree to recover from pruning declines dramatically with age.

There was also another good laugh about the old Erk pulling on the tree with a truck trick and the crown reduction theory. To think somewhere recently I saw on AS he was going to crown reduce a 300 year old oak to make it safer is just BS! That indeed would be the beginning of the end. It was suggested no more than 5% (max) pruning on mature trees. Always prune to collars etc.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Where does thinning play into helping a tree? What does it do, other than take away resources?

 

[Ekka]

There's always more than one way to skin a cat, but some ways are better than others.

If you want to reduce the load on the trunk of the tree, load being either weight or leverage, thinning is an option.

The tree may have bombed out on Erk's BS test, or Klauss's 50:1 ratio, or be decayed etc ... then to reduce the likehood of failure thinning can be done.

The adverse effects of thinning are better than that of crown reduction. Has to be done properly, no lions tailing.

 

[Stumper]

Ekka, Our terms and the mental images they create can betray us as we attempt to communicate. I agree with you that severe crown reduction/drop crotching/ removing to laterals/topping modified to be less bad often is the precursor to death.

What do you mean by thinning? For most people that means an overall reduction of interior branches. That removes food producing capacity and encourages tip growth-hardly a good solution for a tree which we fear is overloading the support capacity of major limbs or trunk.

How do we define tip thinning or gentle reduction or.... what wording will communicate something I sometimes do, that I supect Guy is thinking about when he isn't topping trees and calling it reduction to branch nodes( just teasing Guy). What I mean is making small reduction cuts at the tips. Cutting back to laterals that might be cuts on stems anywhere from 8mm to 60mm (3/8ths up to perhaps 2.5 inches) most SMALLER than 40mm(roughly inch and a half). This reduces weight where it has the most leverage. It reduces apical domince without eliminating it so that more lateral growth can occur without a flush of epicormic shoots. It removes a relatively small amount of leaves (food factories). It removes only a small percentage of leafy growth on most limbs so they are not at high risk for dieback. That IS crown reduction. It DOES thin the tree. It is the kindest, gentlest path to risk reduction via pruning. It also is hard to do in the tip top and I don't know if it even gets considered in the complilation of statistics since virtually noone does it.-I have never seen this operation performed other than by myself or someone subbing for me. :alien: