Split Chinese elm

[mikewhite85]

I was about to set my line in a Chinese Elm today and in the main crotch I found THIS:

View attachment 176637View attachment 176638View attachment 176639

The crack is wide enough to fit my fingers and is about 2 feet long. Somehow I did not notice it during the estimate and, needless to say, I did not set my line above the crotch and prune the tree.

The crown above probably constitutes about 60-70% of the tree and there is one other main branch below the juts out behind.

I doubt removing the entire crotch and heading it back to the lower limb would do any good since it would set the tree way off balance and incur stress due to removing so much of the canopy. Let alone the fact that it would look horrendous.

Can this be remedied with a threaded rod drilled through the crotch? Is there any lasting benefit to this or is it a definite candidate for removal?

Even with the rod in place I would still be pretty nervous about climbing the tree!

What do you guys think?

 

[beastmaster]

A lot depends what around the tree and how important it is to them. It would have to have several braces bolted through it, and a cable placed 3/4 of the way up between the leaders, and a lot of weight removed more then likely. Once you do all that your libel for the tree. The cables will have to be maintained through out the life of the tree. No telling if its to rotted to even hold braces.
If it can't fall on anything if it fails and they want to pay for all that work sell it, but you'd probably be better off just removing it before it splits out and falls over on something. That is just my humble opinion, others might feel different. Take care mike, hope to hear from you soon. Beastmaster