# girdling pines



## murphy4trees (Apr 15, 2004)

I Am wondering if girdling white pines with chainsaw around the base will reduce sap flow.. I have to limb these trees outand will probably have to wait a day or more to rig down the spars... 
I know logs will tend to spew sap when on the ground, but wonder if gravity will keep the sap from flowing if the tree stands..
Any one ever try this?
I would have liked to girdle them a couple days ahead, but they have to go tiomorrow...
thanks


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## treeman82 (Apr 15, 2004)

I have never tried doing that. I have brushed out pine trees before, and then come back a few days later to get the wood out. It sucks even more than doing it when you are up there for the brush, because the sap has had a bunch of time to bleed out. Then you go back up to start dropping wood, and you get your hands all in that bled sap. Possibly the best way to do a pine is from the top down? Like that you aren't climbing through sapped up areas.


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## Lumberjack (Apr 15, 2004)

> _Originally posted by treeman82 _
> *IPossibly the best way to do a pine is from the top down? Like that you aren't climbing through sapped up areas. *



Sounds like something I said   

Top down workds well for me (I SRT pine removals) got up, knock off the top (best for when you can bomb everything), and then ride down witht my lanyard around the tree using my I'd. Zipping off limbs, and only slowing down to adjust my lanyard to the taper.

Stop to drop out the top log, and keep droppin, very very fast!


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## murphy4trees (Apr 15, 2004)

Gotta lower everything!!!
Would like to try the SRT though!!
I'll set my intention to get em down but I have to split for another job..
Any one know the science of why the sap flows after the branch is removed???
Would girdling the tree change that???


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## TreeJunkie (Apr 15, 2004)

Positive Pressure, same reason it's a pain trying to do injections on pines.


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## murphy4trees (Apr 16, 2004)

POsitive pressure caused by what???


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## TreeJunkie (Apr 16, 2004)

I have no idea, that's to the extent of this subject which i care to know.


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## Gypo Logger (Apr 16, 2004)

It seems that it's the pressure of the sap that causes the buds to push out and form leaves. The sun on the crown warms the twigs, further causing a vaccum. In the trees infinite wisdom, it probably shuts off sap loss at some point so it doesn't bleed to death, although girdling will eventualy kill the tree if deep enough and two rings around the tree meet. Girdling trees to kill them is known as "hack & squirt", when a herbicide is sprayed into the cuts.
John


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 16, 2004)

Like brian said, they will use several years of growth for fluid transport, it will taper off as you move in, so you would have to cut in 4-6 rings for it to work, if it will at all. And then probably wait a while.

I've heard of girdling to kill several months ahead of schedule.

Back in the days of homesteading, they would girdle trees so that they would be aged firewood by the time they want to cut it down.


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## murphy4trees (Apr 16, 2004)

I cut about 1" depth all the way around just before climbing and it worked REALLY WELL!!!!!!!!!!!
Almost no sap flow... cleanest I ever came out of a pine removal...


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## okietreedude1 (Apr 16, 2004)

Thanks for the info on what you tried. Im glad it worked out for you. Next time i have a similar situation, Ill try to remember this.


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## murphy4trees (Apr 18, 2004)

Here are the trees 24 hrs later... some sap but not too bad..
Hope you can get a look in this pic..


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## BigJohn (Apr 18, 2004)

I guess this is thread where I wanted to share my input. I know I was on the job 5 minutes and had gotten sap on my bicep and don't know how it got there. Anyway sure wish I had my boy TreesCo with me on that one the second day. I wasn't there for the first day. I working the ground and must say I don't like it much. I am sure TreesCo could have showed me the way. He would just have to realize it was Daniel up there and not Daddy.


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## MasterBlaster (Apr 18, 2004)

...or me!


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 18, 2004)

Would you have been puking chunks with him?


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## BigJohn (Apr 18, 2004)

Puking chunks? I don't get it what did I miss? I don't have much to say about the pine job accept that I hate getting dirty.


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## MasterBlaster (Apr 18, 2004)

I use all my Zen powers to ignore the sap.

In more ways than one... 

:angel:


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 18, 2004)

That was something that Trees Company liked to say how hard he worked humping big wood out of back yards.

He worjed so hard he was puking chunks.


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## Rob Murphy (Apr 18, 2004)

*Hey murph*

Deep ringbarking (girdling) a pine before dismantling stops the sap flow...for real murph?


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## murphy4trees (Apr 19, 2004)

Ya... 
I'll take some close ups of the wood after its down...
The "scientific way to do this would have been to girdle one and leave the other and see the difference.. and I was more interested in being clean than being scientific...
Maybe next time when the logs can be felled without climbing....


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## Burnham (Apr 19, 2004)

Murph, did you worry at all about weakening the tree that you were getting ready to climb? I'm not saying that what you did WOULD weaken it enough to cause concern, just that it might feel that way to me, and wondered if you gave it any thought. Size at girdling point would be everything here, along with general condition.


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## MasterBlaster (Apr 19, 2004)

I wouldn't think that would weaken the tree.


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## ROLLACOSTA (Apr 20, 2004)

i guess this would work on all conifers??


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## Burnham (Apr 20, 2004)

Master B--You are probably right, but here's what I was thinking...if you take a 1 inch girdling cut on a 12 inch cylinder, you have reduced the area of that cylinder by a bit over 30 percent. That will be weaker just because it's smaller, but we all have climbed 10 inch trees without concern. Where I felt a little tickle at the back of my mind was thinking about how such a cut to a cylinder would reduce the resistance to a lean (caused by the climbers weight, wind, natural lean, or a combination of these). By removing the outermost edge of the cylinder, you would reduce the resistance that the outermost edge of that cylinder offers to compression as lean occurs. Then, might tension forces exerted on the side opposite the lean that usually could not begin to act start to do so? Might shearing of holding fibers occur at much lower levels of force than we'd normally expect? I don't feel like I'm expressing myself very well. Does anyone see what I'm getting at?

As I stated in my earlier post, I don't know the size of the trees that Daniel treated this way. But my gut tells me that at some point a tree would be large enough for this to be of absolutely no concern, just as at some point a tree would be small enough that it would be obvious that a 1 inch girdling cut would surely compromise its' strength.

I just don't know where that line might be   .


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## MasterBlaster (Apr 20, 2004)

I suppose it all has to do with what kind of rigging you're going to do in the smaller trees.


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 20, 2004)

And the laoding you'll be doing with jist working in it.

What force will the top put on it as it comes out?


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 20, 2004)

How about someone plotting a graph on the % loss of cross section with a 1 inch cut as the d increases


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## Burnham (Apr 20, 2004)

John Paul--While I was thinking about it I just worked up numbers for a 12 inch stem and a 20 inch stem. 

12 inch reduced to 10 inch is a loss of area from 113.1 sq. in. to 78.5 sq. in., or a reduction of 30.5%.

20 inch reduced to 18 inch is a loss of area from 314.1 sq. in. to 254.7 sq. in., or a reduction 18.9 %.


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## murphy4trees (Apr 22, 2004)

Good points about the loss of area/strength... Something to consider... an inch doesn't seem so small when it's a third of the fibers...

So here are the pics... somebody else try this and tell me I'm not haulucinating..

These trees stood for three days after being limbed..


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## murphy4trees (Apr 22, 2004)

Here's another shot


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## murphy4trees (Apr 22, 2004)

and another


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## murphy4trees (Apr 22, 2004)

Seen enough ???
Last one..
I'll have to go back and souble check just how deep those kerfs are...


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 22, 2004)

> _Originally posted by murphy4trees _
> *Seen enough ???
> Last one..
> I'll have to go back and souble check just how deep those kerfs are... *



It's still imperical, we need you to do 365 more of them with carefull documentation on depth of cut date/time duration between girdling and limbing.....


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## MasterBlaster (Apr 22, 2004)

I would LOVE to try that! My only problem is I don't usually meet the tree until I'm fixing to gear up. I'll definitely try it the first chance I get.


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## Tree Trimmer (Apr 23, 2004)

> _Originally posted by John Paul Sanborn _
> *How about someone plotting a graph on the % loss of cross section with a 1 inch cut as the d increases *



Here you go: x-axis is diameter in inches, y-axis is percent of cross-sectional area decrease (Old Area - New Area)/Old Area

This is assuming a 1 inch cut was made all the way around (i.e. 2" decrease in diameter)

It looks like 15" and up won't make a big difference so maybe that's a safe lower limit for a non-leaning single stem...???


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## murphy4trees (Apr 24, 2004)

MB,
You can girdle the tree just prior to climbing...


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 24, 2004)

> _Originally posted by Tree Trimmer _
> *Here you go: x-axis is diameter in inches, y-axis is percent of cross-sectional area decrease (Old Area - New Area)/Old Area
> 
> This is assuming a 1 inch cut was made all the way around (i.e. 2" decrease in diameter)
> ...



over 30% loss of cylinder strength is concidered to be critical in a hollow tree, maybe 20 inches and over would be better. 

Another thought would be to take some stems and to comparative pulls to show if there is any differance in needed force, then see if you can break the stem.

I would be comfortable with larger ones, but we are working on assumptions and SWAG.


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## rumination (Apr 24, 2004)

whats SWAG?


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## John Paul Sanborn (Apr 24, 2004)

> _Originally posted by rumination _
> *whats SWAG? *



Scientific
Wild
Assed
Guess


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## MasterBlaster (Apr 24, 2004)

*Or bunk reefer*


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## Tree Trimmer (Apr 26, 2004)

> _Originally posted by John Paul Sanborn _
> *over 30% loss of cylinder strength is concidered to be critical in a hollow tree, maybe 20 inches and over would be better. *



30% shows up at 12.2 inches. You probably wouldn't need to girdle something that small anyways. The tree would likely be on the ground before there was a significant amount of sap flow anyways.

TT


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## NickfromWI (Apr 26, 2004)

Hmmmmmm, I'll have to start implementing this on a daily basis!

love
nick


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