# Your favorite tree wound/pruning dressing?



## Mad Professor (Mar 26, 2017)

What do you use for wound dressing when pruning fruit trees, and/or removing large branches on tree work?

I've used treekote for many years on my orchards and am very happy with it. But it can be a little expensive, even when brought in large containers

Anybody use other coatings that work well? Maybe less expensive?

How about home brew coatings or sealers made for other applications?

I'll probably stick with treekote for my orchards but have a lot of large limbs that need to be removed on trees I want to keep healthy.


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## Jed1124 (Mar 26, 2017)




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## 7sleeper (Mar 26, 2017)

There was a experiment done a few years agon in a german community about tree wound dressings and they documented that the best was simple black plastic tacked over the wound imediately after the cut. If it works for fruit trees I cannot say. 

7


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## Mad Professor (Mar 26, 2017)

Jed1124 said:


>



Useful as teats on a bull.


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## Jason Douglas (Mar 26, 2017)

More will come out of Europe shortly.

Schwarze is researching commercial application products containing Trichoderma to hopefully supress many decay organisms from pruning cuts. I've read a little and some results look quite promising.


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## Jed1124 (Mar 26, 2017)

Mad Professor said:


> Useful as teats on a bull.


So is tree wound dressing......


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## Mad Professor (Mar 26, 2017)

Jed1124 said:


> So is tree wound dressing......



Explain your statement to justify your assertion. I'm sure, with your experience in orchards and as an arborist, you'll come up with something? Give it a try!

You live in the Northeast so you should be familiar with both peach and red oak trees? The former has common insect pests known as borers, the latter is currently under attack by a fungus found as close as New York state

I'll give You 2 examples where wound/pruning dressing is an effective means to prevent, insects (1) and diseases (2). Want some more examples?

1) Lesser Peach Tree Borer- 

Lesser peachtree borer overwinters as larvae underneath the bark. Larvae of all stages except the first may be found during the winter. The larvae feed for a period in the spring before burrowing just below the surface of the bark to pupate. Borers remain in the pupal stage from 18 to 30 days before emerging as adults. *Female moths deposit eggs in small clusters in cracks and crevices near wounds* between ground level and eight feet high. Females lay an average of 400 small oval, reddish brown eggs. Larvae begin to hatch in 8 to 10 days and burrow into the bark, *often entering through cracks caused by other factors such as winter injury, pruning scars or machinery wounds. *Moths emerge from early May until late September in Kentucky, USA. There are two generations per year with adult emergence in May and June, then again in August and September.

https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef213

2) Oak Wilt Fungus-

Overland Spread of Oak Wilt

New infection centers can occur if the fungus is carried from an infected tree to a fresh wound on a healthy tree by an insect in a process called overland spread (figure 3, upper pathway).




Oak wilt spore mats emit a strong, fruity or wine-like odor that attracts many different species of nitidulid beetles (figure 6), also known as sap beetles. As they feed on or tunnel through the spore mats, nitidulid beetles often accumulate fungal spores on the surface of their bodies. 




*Oak trees often sustain wounds caused by construction equipment, storms, pruning tools, or vandalism.* Fresh wounds usually leak sap that attracts insects, including nitidulid beetles that have visited oak wilt spore mats. The overland movement of the fungus via nitidulid beetles that visit both spore mats on infected trees and *wounds on otherwise healthy trees* thus creates most new infection centers. 

Avoid wounding oaks during critical infection periods.


*If pruning is necessary, or if wounds occur on oak trees during the critical infection period, apply tree wound dressings or paints as soon as possible to prevent transmission of oak wilt.*

oakwiltusda.pdf


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## Jed1124 (Mar 27, 2017)

Mad Professor said:


> Explain your statement to justify your assertion. I'm sure, with your experience in orchards and as an arborist, you'll come up with something? Give it a try!
> 
> You live in the Northeast so you should be familiar with both peach and red oak trees? The former has common insect pests known as borers, the latter is currently under attack by a fungus found as close as New York state
> 
> ...


Ok, I'll make a go of it. With Peach Tree Borer, they generally only attack trees that are stressed, like most insect pests. They will bore into the trunk and stems of stressed trees regardless of how much wound dressing you use. Signs of their activity is generally gummosis on the trunk of the trees with frass within it. The only thing that is going to work to treat a tree that is under attack is to first improve the vigor of the tree, and then bark applications of an insecticide like permethrin based off timing from pheromone traps.
We do not have Oak Wilt in my area. In areas where Oak Wilt is a problem, Oaks are only to be pruned during the Winter months. Any pruning that is not absolutely necessary (i.e. storm damage) during the time which the oak wilt vector is active is bad aborculture period. I have read that wound dressing can be helpful in areas that are active with oak wilt. If I had to, and I mean had to prune a red oak in one of those areas during any other time than winter I might dress the wound with Lac Balsalm. My first priority would be to inject the tree with propocanazole to prevent an infection of the trees vascular system. 
Wound dressings that are petroleum based inhibit the 4th wall of compartmentalization. Regardless of how much you "seal off" that pruning cut, your ultimate goal should be for the tree to compartmentalize it. Doing anything that inhibits that from taking place is counter-intuitive.


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## 7sleeper (Mar 27, 2017)

Jed1124 said:


> ... your ultimate goal should be for the tree to compartmentalize it...


And that has been the achieved goal described in the survey I quoted, being that simple black plastic tacked over the cut off area achieves by far the best results. 

7


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## Jason Douglas (Mar 27, 2017)

Whats that German study?
Authors?


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