Cutting deadwood in lightning struck tree

freeholmes · Jul 14, 2016

I climbed the remaining half of a live oak that was hit by lightning probably 10+ years ago. Tree was at least 60" dbh and had an old open wound that started 3 feet above the ground til bout 20 ft up the trunk and was about 3 ft wide at the widest point in the middle. There had been termites a long time ago, but were treated and now the wound just was home to an insane amount of ants and bees.

There was 3 ft stub about 2ft in the middle of the wound that my Foreman made me cut despite my wishes to just leave it alone because I only had a 16" bar. There was no living wood or bark for a foot at least in any direction. Anyways, long story short he said I made a bad cut and I agree the angle was a little off.

My question is does it really matter? If the stub had been left its not like it is a portal for infection since there is exposed wood all around already in various state of decay. There was no collar for the dead leader I cut, but if there was, and I cut in to it, would it make a difference in this case? I don't believe I damaged any particular defense system, but I really don't know.

ropensaddle · Jul 14, 2016

freeholmes said:
I climbed the remaining half of a live oak that was hit by lightning probably 10+ years ago. Tree was at least 60" dbh and had an old open wound that started 3 feet above the ground til bout 20 ft up the trunk and was about 3 ft wide at the widest point in the middle. There had been termites a long time ago, but were treated and now the wound just was home to an insane amount of ants and bees.

There was 3 ft stub about 2ft in the middle of the wound that my Foreman made me cut despite my wishes to just leave it alone because I only had a 16" bar. There was no living wood or bark for a foot at least in any direction. Anyways, long story short he said I made a bad cut and I agree the angle was a little off.

My question is does it really matter? If the stub had been left its not like it is a portal for infection since there is exposed wood all around already in various state of decay. There was no collar for the dead leader I cut, but if there was, and I cut in to it, would it make a difference in this case? I don't believe I damaged any particular defense system, but I really don't know.

Was the stub dead? If so, I don't see a need to even cut it. At ten years everything that could be walled off has, so any decay should stop at the wall. As long as you don't cut into that wall, no harm no fowl!

treesmith · Jul 15, 2016

If there's no live bark, collar or live wood to occlude the stub then it's irrelevant how you cut it, it's then just down to looks and bad cuts do look pretty crappy, it'll be there for a while too

With that said, when working on Eucalyptus no matter how good your cuts they can look really bad from the ground even though they're millimetre perfect

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CanopyGorilla · Jul 16, 2016

treesmith said:
If there's no live bark, collar or live wood to occlude the stub then it's irrelevant how you cut it, it's then just down to looks and bad cuts do look pretty crappy, it'll be there for a while too

With that said, when working on Eucalyptus no matter how good your cuts they can look really bad from the ground even though they're millimetre perfect

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Why is that? We have mountain ash here (sorbus) and the branch bark ridge is very far out, so every proper cut looks like a stub.

treesmith · Jul 16, 2016

They can be a foot out from the stem or look like a flush cut or have wierd angles. Included forks and unions are pretty common too

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CanopyGorilla · Jul 16, 2016

treesmith said:
They can be a foot out from the stem or look like a flush cut or have wierd angles. Included forks and unions are pretty common too

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Yeah I have heard they are just a beast to climb. We have lots of cottonwood though, and those put the "man" in ya pretty quick.