Pruning decaying or small branches

[dfehring]

This is kinda a dumb question but I'm curious about how to prune small dead branches or heavily decayed branches. I usually prune to the collar if there is one but when branches are easily removable I can just pull them and snap em off by hand. If there is a stub I'll cut that off too but a lot of the time the branch will just pop off close to the collar but obviously that's not much of a clean cut. I saw somewhere removing decayed branches by just popping them off can actually remove some of the decayed branch material from inside the collar but also may risk of damaging the collar. Anyway is it best practice to clean cut with a saw instead of popping them off?

 

[TNTreeHugger]

This is kinda a dumb question but I'm curious about how to prune small dead branches or heavily decayed branches. I usually prune to the collar if there is one but when branches are easily removable I can just pull them and snap em off by hand. If there is a stub I'll cut that off too but a lot of the time the branch will just pop off close to the collar but obviously that's not much of a clean cut. I saw somewhere removing decayed branches by just popping them off can actually remove some of the decayed branch material from inside the collar but also may risk of damaging the collar. Anyway is it best practice to clean cut with a saw instead of popping them off?

I think I'd be more concerned about why the limbs are dying.