Removing trees w/ roots that sprout

mdvaden

What's everyone's strategy on removing trees with roots that sprout?

My first exposure to this was black locust - a Robinia - at our own home in my late teens.

As soon as we cut down one that was about 25 years old, from the middle of a lawn area (100' x 100'), hundreds of small trees began growing.

At least it was not an irrigated lawn is summer, and I let the sprouts grow to 2' high, then sprayed with lawn weed herbicide.

When I encounter trees in landscapes, where sprouts grow in shrubs - root systems intertwined, I cover the plants to keep, spray the sprout, let it dry, and let the herbicide chemically chase it's root system.

In case two trees may have a root graft, and I want to kill one with herbicide, but not the other, severing the root systems with a stump grinder as a narrow trench device seems reasonable - for small to medium trees anyhow.

Anyone else do injections?

Other methods?

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Grove of Redwood TITANS

Oregon BIGOOT trap

TreeDimensional

Interesting topic Mario, I am asked about this by clients all the time. Occasionally we are asked to come and look at the outbreak of New growth, even if a tree hasn't been removed recently. I believe this is a survival action of a severly stressed tree, not unlike the reaction of the root system of a tree that has been removed.

Some clients don't want, or can't afford to have their stumps ground, but don't want suckers growing all over the yard either. We were told of a recipe for a sure fire way to keep the sprouts from growing. It involved gouging a circle with the tip of the chainsaw bar around the circumferance of the active xylem. The pour a mixture of glyphosate and water into the cut. Well I can attest to the fact that it does work, BUT there can be unexpected results too. I unfortunatley killed a couple non-target trees (100' away). NEVER UNDER ESTIMATE THE SIZE OF THE ROOT SYSTEM. In this case the root grafts were enough to negatively impact neighboring trees.

At this point of my learning curve, I have adopted a policy of stump grinding ONLY. I believe that the best approach is to remove as much of the root plate as possible. My theory is that this will shorten the effects of sprouting, as the root system will be unable to move resourses from optimal areas to less thrifty ones. The problem is there will still be suckering, what should I tell my clients to do? Are there other options that are freasible?

A caveat to all this is of course is the type of tree and the soil in which the roots reside.

mdvaden

Looks like maybe most tree services never deal with this.

Maybe the tree services are the cause of sprouts, but not the solution. You know - they do the removal, get paid, but are not there months later when the explosion of sprouts gets going.

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Grove of Redwood TITANS

Oregon BIGOOT trap

Sean Freeman

i think there is a lot of truth in what you say Mario

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Sean

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
- Kahlil Gibran

mdvaden

In one way, it's sort of an unavoidable "evil" - some of the trees have to be removed.

If I could go back in time, I probably would have killed our black locust with herbicides first.

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Grove of Redwood TITANS

Oregon BIGOOT trap

azrael

MDV...There are two trees together....a species which tends to root-sucker if disturbed (Robinia is a classic for this)...and you're wanting to remove only one, but keep the other....AND theres a good chance they're root-grafted. IS that correct?

Any translocating herbicide has the potential to move into the specimen you wish to keep...(and kill the non-traget).
Option....continual supression of the regrowth ....it will eventually exhaust itself. You could try something phytotoxic....boiling water comes to mind immediately...if you have the patience to do it, that is. Boiling water poured directly on the re-shoots...before they get too big and woody.

and here some other food for thought...

The scenario is Willow (or other) removals where herbicide is undesirable.
I had a case of an commercial Organic Vegetable Garden where herbicide use was not an option (contravenes 'Certification' status)...Stump grinding was out too...these Willows were standing in a watercourse ....so dozing over was out too.
In fact it was quite important to retain root-mass.... for bank binding...at least for an interim period anyway.

The solution, after much research...and as recommended by Dept. Natural Resources....cut off all vegetative growth to a log abt. 1m high...make numerous vertical cuts into the face of the stump, such that the injuries would be suceptible to pathogens entering.
Return 6mths to inspect...remove re-growth if it occurs ... take off about 200-300mm from the stump and re-injure...
Continue in this way .. inspect, remove regrowth...re-injure until the decay wins.

This is the certified Organic Garden...the willow infested creek is in the background...(there were a couple of Black Willows in the group too).
Organic beds.jpg

Willows.jpg
All up there would be about 50 trees...and in another area there were Coral Trees.
Willows 2.jpg
The water quality is so bad...because the week before I visited, the had owner spent the weekend on a tractor pulling the trees out...wholesale.

D Mc

Dealing with regrowth from aggressive species after romoval is a challenging problem. Our most implemented procedure is first warning the client that regrowth is a possibility, even a probability, that will require future treatment.

What we do is try to schedule the removal during the most active part of the growing season as possible. On completion of the base cut we do cut the grove in the cambial zone to a depth of 3/4 to 1 inch deep around the full circumference of the stump, but instead of applying a herbicide we carefully and IMMEDIATELY apply our chainsaw fuel mix.

This mix is absorbed rapidly on a fresh cut and we have had good results on what we refer to as a shock response kill. We generally allow this situation stand for at least 3 weeks prior to grinding out the stump. We have not experienced any translocation related toxicity to date.

If regrowth does happen of individual sprouting, the best method is to pull the root, which with the stump removed is not as big of a deal. (Many clients have us do this at the time of grinding the stump.) If that is not possible a systemic herbicide for leaf application is then recommended. (We inform the client that they need to allow the regrowth, spray, wilt, then cut; rather than cut off the growth then spray.)

D Mc

Ekka

Azrael,

I think what they figure is by leaving a higher stump the regrowth will be concentrated at the stump rather than suckers everywhere.

Then the natural pathogens can chase those roots down however when they meet the living roots of the nearby trees some resistance to the decay.

Could be an issue for a fungus like Phelinus Noxious which predominantly translocates via grafted root systems, you could very well be assisting healthy trees to contract a deadly fate.

About the worst up here for this problem is Chinese Elm (Celtis chinensis).

In this thread the tree died from it and there was a number of other dead stumps around same.

Diagnose this fungal death attack on Chinese elm (Celtis chinensis) Toowong Brisbane

I think the best course of action if using herbicides would be to sever the roots to adjoining trees. Like find the best place to do a cut like Mario says. Hit the tree with a good dose of round up, maybe a few days before removal too just to make sure but not too long before so all the leaves fall off.

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azrael

Ekka thats a good point about pathogens...
My bad terminology....the intent was as follows...
The above method relies on non-pathogenic cellulolytic organisms (bacteria and fungi) present in the normal soil biota to invade and degrade the 'stump'.
Examples would be Streptomyces, Pseudomonas, Clostridium, Aspergillus, Fusarium, Trichoderma & Flavobacterium.....and others.

Attached Images

Stump decay.pdf (32.0 KB, 4 views)