Pruning cuts - collar, collarless and co-dominant

Ekka

Spotted this on the side of the road.

The first picture shows it as I found it, notice the bark toward the bottom, now in the rest of the shots I pulled that bark off looking for where the callus growth was.

P3020011.JPG

You'll clearly see the trees response.

P3020012.JPG
P3020013.JPG
P3020014.JPG

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Underwor

Support is the trees first priority as regards the production of anti-decay activities. Compartmentalization is second in this regard. There are as you say, many other things that are higher priority in the whole scheme of things.

Hope this clears things up a little.

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Bob Underwood, Associate Professor of Forestry
ND School of Forestry
Minot State University - Bottineau Campus
Bottineau, North Dakota

Underwor

I started to address this a little in post #19. I'll try to get more specific later.

What are your thoughts about leaving a long stub, so that the tree will start to compartmentalize near the proper place for a cut, while the entrance for pathogens is still a long distance away. The theory is that this starts the process while the pathogen is a long way from the tree's heart so to speak, then you cut off the stub. It also makes the proper place to cut the stub easier to see, since the remaining stem will have started to grow around it in a year or so, leaving a very definite ridge. Of course, this is more labor intensive, but it might be something to consider on your higher end customers, who take a deal of interest in educating themselves as well as caring for their trees.

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Bob Underwood, Associate Professor of Forestry
ND School of Forestry
Minot State University - Bottineau Campus
Bottineau, North Dakota

Sean Freeman

Yes thats very interesting and has some merit, but as for having clients who are going to follow the explaination of why i would be leaving a stub then returning later to remove same stub, can't see it, not in my current market place.

But in terms of what is actually going on in the tree yes I'd agree with the arguement that the tree will form both chemical and physical barriers behind the cut irrespective of the final location (given its away from the ideal finishing line) Not sure how you'd locate the that ridge in some of the species we deal with up here, also there is a limit to that distance.. if you leave a long stub you leave numerous meristematic points from which reassertion of hormonal growth control will be attempted.(To complicate the situation even further in some circumatnces I would argue permitting epicormic growth to occur can be beneficial in the stimulation of raised cambium vitality in larger limbs)

In the rare occaisons I've worked on veteran trees here in Oz thats been exactly my approach, since with secondary branch unions the tree system will do all its going to do behind the cut, once that damage is made. There are of course some big variations in approach...dose when it comes to branches (even secondary) with huge storage capacity ie very large diameter limbs, then my approach along with Steve has been to try to persuade the client to allow us to stage the reduction of that limb over 12 months or more leading to the final removal with the ideal finishing cut. Our logic being lets try to permit the tree to withdraw what resources it can from the limb over the time we are reducing it. (Talking about limbs >500mm dia) But thus far there's onlt been two clients that have accepted the logic of that arguement. (after all the cost is the same for them at the time of quoting, we'd make some allowance for the extra travel but honestly not enough)

Of course the other aspect with older trees..veterans is that you stop percieving them as single biological entities and see them in their real role within the ecosystem as a whole, some of thosse fungi are more ecologically fragile than the tree, providing them with a niche is pretty darn important too (but you and I can maybe discuss that in some other thread)

All of what we and others have touched on is all relative to variations in species, age, environment and past practices, not a cop out just recognition that how I approach dose for a young mango is vastly different to that for a mature eucalypt. In fact with mangofera indica, tamarindus indica, and ceasalpinea ferrea (all great compartmentalisers) I would have no reservations in leaving a short stub to be removed on a second visit perhaps 6-8 months later, but we're talking about co-dominant stems here and these species have very well defined stem and branch bark ridges so finding the ideal line for the finishing cut should not be a problem anyway.

I"m assuming all of the above probably comes accross as overly complex but honestly I don't believe it is, each tree has its own genetic imperatives, working away through the restraints and limitations of the environmental circumstances it finds itself. Any absolutist model of this is the precise location of the final cut for an equally divided branch union such as is the case in co-dominance I think will lead to errors that are avoidable.

My way of trying to limit my margin of error has been when in doubt in make my cuts in the locations indicated in previous posts.

SF

Ekka

It would be good to get comparable pics on the same tree, one cut to target straight off the other a year later then disect it 5 years later and see the difference. The difference neasuring the internal into the stem.

If indeed the heartwood is not resupplied and what is there does the work then there'd be little if any difference IMHO. It's not as though the heartwood is gaining anything in the next year as far as decay resistance is it?

However the cambium would perhaps be given either another season to grow or die, but that would be one season less in closure.

I'll take it as a theory at this stage till I see supportive evidence. I understand the merit but I have cut off many dead stubs where the bark has had to grow along rather than around, not much else achieved. If the stub was like 2' away then the target cut is pretty much a fresh cut as it would have been in the beginning. If the stub cut was closer like 6" away then the target cut reveals a semi decayed heartwood cut.

In my pics you'll notice some where dead stubs remained.

Subordination over time of a co-dominant stem can turn it into a collar, but that would be a long slow process.

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Underwor

Ekka,

I was just ready to bring up the subordination idea, rather than the stub to help make the point of union of the two stem clearer. It is a slow process in human time, in tree time, it is just a moment. The hard part of this business is to think like a tree. We may need to change our pace to that of the tree's. I realize that this is a hard concept to sell to clients in the high pressure business world. We may need to convince them that it is a cheap natural form of yoga, go with the flow of nature, be at one with nature. These concepts may work best with slower growing, strong compartmentalizers, which typically have long life spans, as opposed to weak compartmentalizers, that grow fast and die young.

I use Arboriculture by Harris, et.al. for my classes. The first chapter deals with the basic principles of arboriculture. The first two principles I think are the most important: "As tree development changes with time, so must tree care." "Tree care is a long term, low intensity process."

Often in our discussions, we are trying to group young trees with old trees, forest grown trees with boulevard trees. It is hard in our daily businesses to separate them as there may be several ages in the same lawn. Why are we treating one different than the other??

How many of you find that you are often treating the customer, rather than the tree?? If they only understood the complex systems that are in place, which have allowed trees to live for thousands of years with no intervention from man, WHOOPS, we may all be out of work. Perhaps we all need to be educators first and tree loppers second. This is where professionalism, the respect that goes with it, and a whole other discussion begins.

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Bob Underwood, Associate Professor of Forestry
ND School of Forestry
Minot State University - Bottineau Campus
Bottineau, North Dakota

TreeCo

I certainally do!

People constantally ask for qoutes on work that is not in their best interest or the best interest of their trees.

Great discussion BTW.

TREE-SURFER

TreeCo,
I occasionally get asked by the customer to do what they want, like "just take 15foot off the top" or "Just shave a foot or so off the sides" (Only if I became a hair-dresser). I have to tell them the correct way that their particular tree needs sorting. If they insist, I just tell that I won't do it and for them to get someone else, but politely. More often than not, they come back and ask for me to do what I think. "The customer is always right!" , yeh, right.

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Sean Freeman

My approach is to gently lead them in the right direction, always use the line what are your expectations from the tree, what is it you want from this tree. If they come back with no leaves on the roof/ in the pool/ on the driveway well then its probably going to be a short visit.

We get fewer and fewer clients like that because I suppose the word on Steve's business is that we're Arborists and we won't cut a tree in half....We walk away from a lot of jobs, and its always dissapointing to go past a place where you spent 30-45 mins explaining the options for a tree only to see it totally lopped 3/4months later.

But thats the drawback in the domestic market, in general, the home owner believes there are no standards that they have to adhere to (in fact there are lots of them) they want the cheapest price for the most work, and so long as nothing goes wrong they believe their experience backs up their view. For the people who call us out only to insist that their tree must be lopped we'll tell them they'd be better putting their cash in a pile and setting fire to it they'd get more productive result than from the lopping.

SF

Ekka

This is a great thread, I love it.

So true, tree time and a little bit at a time is best, I only have a handful of good customers to whom I return frequently to care for their trees. In some cases it even involves treatments other than chainsaws.

Now back to the nitty gritty (yes, I like the nitty gritty) stub then target cut 1 year later vs immediate target cut.

I threw the challenge up, lets nut it out.

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a_lopa

Its great being a shrink to your clients,a social worker to employees and cut trees!

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Underwor

I posted the following yesterday, but it seems to have gotten lost in the Pacific somewhere on the way across.

This information came from a site at Purdue University. I will enclose the link to the page at the bottom. There are two parts to it, one addressing rays and other parenchyma cells in the heartwood and the part the play in rot resistance, the second deals with some information on parenchyma cells in general. Hope it helps.

"Often, the wood in is a lighter color toward the outside and darker in the center. These two areas of xylem are the sapwood and heartwood. The sapwood is the physiologically active portion of the xylem, where tracheids and vessels are used for conduction of water and dissolved nutrients, and the parenchyma cells are alive and function in carbohydrate storage. The heart-wood is nonfunctional and even the parenchyma cells are dead. They may have died because they were buried by accumulating layers of oxygen-limiting xylem. It is more likely that they died because the tree used these cells as a dump site for its own toxic waste - tannins and phenols. The heartwood is particularly decay-resistant because of the accumulation of these compounds, which account for its darker color too."

"The fourth type of xylem cell is the parenchyma, an undifferentiated cell that remains alive in the xylem for several years. These cells are scattered in the xylem and constitute the vascular rays, which provide a pathway for lateral movement across the xylem. Like the other parenchyma cells in the xylem, they the storage sites for carbohydrates essential for the vitality and growth of trees. These living parenchyma cells allow the tree to respond to wounds. The callus that forms around the edges of a wound on the trunk or a pruned branch arises from the totipotent parenchyma cells in the xylem. Parenchyma cells at the bottom of a stem cutting begin to divide and form roots whereas those at the upper end of the cut-ting develop into shoots."
http://www.fnr.purdue.edu/inwood/pas...ees%20grow.htm

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Bob Underwood, Associate Professor of Forestry
ND School of Forestry
Minot State University - Bottineau Campus
Bottineau, North Dakota

Underwor

Here is a link that talks about the possible sequence of events that makes leaving a stub or prewounding something to be considered. It is by Bob Wulkowicz, for those of you who have been on these sites long enough to remember him. He is from Chicago/Nova Scotia now-a-days.

http://165.234.175.12/photos/Arbor/codit-range1.gif

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Bob Underwood, Associate Professor of Forestry
ND School of Forestry
Minot State University - Bottineau Campus
Bottineau, North Dakota

Sean Freeman

Nice post Bob

Bob Wulkowicz forces you to think about trees from a slightly different position than you have in the past and in doing so (I find at least) stimulates thoughts and ideas that you may never have considered before, here's an old link to a site but I think its still good. http://users.rcn.com/bobw.enteract/article1.html

Sean Freeman