Hypothetical ?

[newbym]

So I was looking at the thread with the pics of the seriously decayed red oak and it got me to thinking about my bonsai trees. See, a big old cavity like that can be a big plus for a bonsai, really helping get that aged look.

When you make a wound like that (called a shari, or uro if it's a deep cavity, if you care) you rip,tear or grind out the hollow, then treat the wound with lime sulfur to prevent decay. Lime sulfur is also used to treat/stop decay in bonsai.

So I'm thinking - Why can't this be done on a large tree? It's extremely effective on my small trees, and the price isn't that high. For treating decay on bonsai, you just remove the soft stuff with a soft bristle brush, then paint the lime sulfur onto the decaying area. Seems to me that the same would work on a large tree, too.

Any thoughts?

 

[treeseer]

treat the wound with lime sulfur to prevent decay. Lime sulfur is also used to treat/stop decay in bonsai.

So I'm thinking - Why can't this be done on a large tree? thoughts?

at one time i looked at antifreeze for this purpose, as it is used on boats. i was sternly warned about phytotoxic stuff traveling to and killing live tissue. but then there is codit...

 

[Treepedo]

jeez, that sounds reasonable.
Theres got a be a paper on it somewhere.

 

[pdqdl]

Money!

Not many are going to pay some arborist to climb down the inside of a hollow tree to bore out "the soft stuff" and to treat it with the appropriate chemicals afterwards. Doing this operation remotely with fancy equipment would also be prodigiously expensive. When you are done, you still have a dangerous hollow tree that is likely to fall over in a big wind.

That, and bonsai trees are vastly more valuable (per pound) than any normal tree.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

There is the liability issue, but I am more concerned with efficacy. you need to get all of the wood treated, and many times you damage the good wood, breaking the extant boundaries.

With the CODIT model the new wood after the wounding event is the strongest barrier, people did as you describe back when they were doing "real tree surgery" filling cavities. I've heard of some old studies that showed the "surgery" did more harm then good.

I can see (and have read of) doing this with an active infection, like snake head canker, or nectria. Guy, what where they using 10 years ago with Armallaria mellea?