Pruning Paint , Good or Bad?

[jefflovstrom]

If I paint for a client, I let them know it is only cosmetic!
Jeff Lovstrom

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Firstly I must say that it wasn't I or the company that I was working for that made the cuts or applied the dressing to the beautiful tree that'did' suffer an untimely death as result of moisture getting in between the A****x and the top of the cuts which caused rot to set into three major limbs.The tree would almost certainly be alive today had the client chosen a more competent company.

Of course, a competent arborist would have advised against large cuts on a mature tree. If they needed to be made, proper pruning cuts are the way to go.

These wounds were of a size that would have healed over completely had Target Pruning techniques been observed. It's sad to say that some "Arborists" have not even heard of Target Pruning which has far more bearing on a wounds ability to heal than wound dressing. I know it's impossible to be 100 percent accurate every time because every mm is crucial, but too many companies rush their employees.

Here we are getting into language I'm not comfortable with. "healed over", "wounds ability to heal" both suggest a process that trees don't do.
They abandon the wood that is injured and build "walls" around it. A process called CODIT. The tree doesn't care if you paint the abandoned wood, leave it alone, do a happy dance around it, or squirt it with a solution of warm water and wood decay fungi 3 times a day! The wood is abandoned by the tree, and walled off!

As for my 'cause and effect logic' being flawed, I was merely an employee of the company at the time which was 23 years ago. It was the opinion of three other Arborists, one from the local authority, one from the clients who are custodians of thousands of acres of English estates, & heritage, and the consultant at the company I was working for. I suppose their 'cause and effect logic' could be flawed but I doubt it as they have been looking after hundreds of thousands of some of the oldest trees in the UK for over a hundred years now so I guess you could say that they are experienced.

Experience is a funny thing. I know many experienced arborists that spike on trims, to get up and top them out.

You will notice I haven't elected to dissect your opinion because you are entitled to it as I am also entitled to mine. Your "World of trees" Sire is not everybodies 'World of trees'It would be nice if you could bear that in mind when replying to posts.

If you want to disect my post, feel free. I hope you do, and I learn something. Otherwise my time here is wasted.
I don't know if your in TX yet, but if you are, I hope you investigate modern thinking on wound treatments, before you start working on all those Oak Wilted trees there.

There are a lot of reasons a wound will decay and become a health problem for a tree. Presence or absence of wound dressing is not even close to the top of the list. Niether is your target prunning within mms.

 

[TreeTopKid]

Of course, a competent arborist would have advised against large cuts on a mature tree. If they needed to be made, proper pruning cuts are the way to go.
....................
****The cuts weren't large just Flush and I already said the company was incompetent. NOT OUR COMPANY WE DIDN"T GET THE JOB if you read the post properly you may have noticed.****

Here we are getting into language I'm not comfortable with. "healed over", "wounds ability to heal" both suggest a process that trees don't do.
They abandon the wood that is injured and build "walls" around it. A process called CODIT. The tree doesn't care if you paint the abandoned wood, leave it alone, do a happy dance around it, or squirt it with a solution of warm water and wood decay fungi 3 times a day! The wood is abandoned by the tree, and walled off!
Experience is a funny thing. I know many experienced arborists that spike on trims, to get up and top them out.
......................
****We all learned about CODIT at college, and I might have guessed you'd know someone who'd spike up a healthy tree.****
.....................
If you want to disect my post, feel free. I hope you do, and I learn something. Otherwise my time here is wasted.
I don't know if your in TX yet, but if you are, I hope you investigate modern thinking on wound treatments, before you start working on all those Oak Wilted trees there.
...............

****I didn't really want to disect your post but you insisted, and I've yet to learn anything. The modern wound treatment you speak about is far from new what were the others? Yes I've been in Texas for seven months (that's you're BTW) I have a fantastic job with a fantastic salary, and we've not had a single case of Oak Wilt on any of our 7000 Live Oaks.****

................
There are a lot of reasons a wound will decay and become a health problem for a tree. Presence or absence of wound dressing is not even close to the top of the list. Niether is your target prunning within mms.

.................

****Agreed! Thanks for repeating what I said, and Target Pruning should always be your goal regardless of it's ranking on your list. If you're saying the way that you make a pruning cut does not affect the way it heals then it is you that is misguided.****

Now put your copy of 'A New Tree Biology' back in your pram and get on with whats left of the weekend.

..................

Have a nice day.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

If you're saying the way that you make a pruning cut does not affect the way it heals then it is you that is misguided.

No, I don't think how you make a cut is a big deal. There are a lot more important considerations.
What would you say is a worse case scenario, cutting off a 2" diameter branch on a 10" inch diameter, healthy, fast growing tree, while leaving a 1 foot stub and accidentally hitting the trunk with the saw, or doing a proper pruning cut, exactly on target, to a 2 foot diameter branch, on an over mature, slow growing tree, growing in compacted soil with construction damaged roots, during a drought?

It's great you think how you make your cuts is important, and to some extent it is, but you need to look at the bigger picture. Why are you making the cut? Can it be avoided? Can the removal be done in increments over several years? What can be done to improve the health of the tree before the cutting.
When you really get down to it, the actual cut is almost inconsequential.
I might argue that how you make a cut is as important as whether or not you use wound dressing, in some cases. Failure to use paint, could kill the tree outright.
By the way, what's a pram?

 

[TreeTopKid]

No, I don't think how you make a cut is a big deal. There are a lot more important considerations.
What would you say is a worse case scenario, cutting off a 2" diameter branch on a 10" inch diameter, healthy, fast growing tree, while leaving a 1 foot stub and accidentally hitting the trunk with the saw, or doing a proper pruning cut, exactly on target, to a 2 foot diameter branch, on an over mature, slow growing tree, growing in compacted soil with construction damaged roots, during a drought?

It's great you think how you make your cuts is important, and to some extent it is, but you need to look at the bigger picture. Why are you making the cut? Can it be avoided? Can the removal be done in increments over several years? What can be done to improve the health of the tree before the cutting.
When you really get down to it, the actual cut is almost inconsequential.
I might argue that how you make a cut is as important as whether or not you use wound dressing, in some cases. Failure to use paint, could kill the tree outright.
By the way, what's a pram?

These are all factors that any Arborist worth his salt would consider, and I certainly don't think proper cuts are the be all, and end all but it does play a large part in the time it takes the wound to heal/bark over completely.

 

[aquan8tor]

I may have committed a grievous faux pas, but I put some asphalt undercarriage paint over a cut on a maple stump a few weeks ago--there's still the other fork of the tree left. Should I go and cut the paint off, or has the damage been done?? I'm no arborist. I cut the piece off because it had died, and it was curly maple....thankyou for any advice.

 

[windthrown]

Proper pruning

Where and how you prune a tree is highly variable depending on location, season, species, shape, disease, damage, age, climate, and what the customer wants. If the customer wants the whole tree down, then get out the chainsaw and ask if he wants the firewood or not. Beware though; if it is a maple tree, it will send up lots of shoots and start growing again. So will a redwood tree. You need to consider what will happen after you prune a tree. Especially when pollarding. I personally hate pollarding, but if a tree has already been pollarded, so you are stuck with a long task of a lot of pruning to establish and retrain large branches high up in a tree, or just continue pollarding it every few years.

How to prune a tree is dependent on the species and growth habits, and whether they have dormant buds on the trunk and branches or not. If you prune a Monterey pine branch beyond green growth, you will kill off that whole branch, regardless of how much branch is left. Do the same to a California live oak and it will put out a spray of new branches just below the cut. So pruning for whatever reason to whatever depth will have variable results depending on the tree species.

To the guy that asphalt sealed the maple tree... maples are very hearty trees with vigorous root systems. If you completely stump cut them to the ground they will grow back. If you sealed the cut on one trunk I do not think that it is that big of a deal. You can cut it back further if there is room, but I would not bother. Paint (even asphalt) is pretty cosmetic.

 

[aquan8tor]

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to kill the other part of the tree. I only cut the one fork because where it had been broken above by wind, I could see the grain was curly. I laid off it for a while, and now I have a decent sized log of partially spalted, curly maple for a table top.

 

[Urban Forester]

The best way to avoid possible Oak wilt infections is to prune Oaks from November through March when the vectors aren't active. In Michigan we've found that the insect vector only accounts for around 10% of infections, root grafting is the more serious issue. This may not hold true in other regions of the country.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Your percentages are deceiving. Insect vectors are probably responsible for closer to 95% of new infection centers, maybe more.
That's the reason you need to be so cautious, once you spread Oak Wilt to a tree, you've condemned every Oak, within an unbroken root graft connection, to death.
What your statistic says, is once a single Oak gets Wilt, an average of 9.5 trees die from vascular spread. It says nothing about the chances of a tree getting Wilt do to injury.

 

[treeseer]

It's entertaining to see Maas argue with someone else.opcorn:

I use a shellac-based sealant for big cuts I know would crack and rot otherwise (<1%). It needs to be reapplied but it slows decay. Anecdotal observations give me all the proof I need. Search the old NEWTS threads here if you're curious.

 

[jefflovstrom]

It is still cosmetic, Dang!- Where were you guys with the stuff hundreds of years ago? Sorry, sarcastic, but it is dressing and not needed.
Jeff Lovstrom

 

[windthrown]

Oak wilt...

Your percentages are deceiving. Insect vectors are probably responsible for closer to 95% of new infection centers, maybe more.
That's the reason you need to be so cautious, once you spread Oak Wilt to a tree, you've condemned every Oak, within an unbroken root graft connection, to death.
What your statistic says, is once a single Oak gets Wilt, an average of 9.5 trees die from vascular spread. It says nothing about the chances of a tree getting Wilt do to injury.

I am curious about this oak wilt in the midwest. Out here in the wild west we have SOD, sudden oak death. Bad stuff. Also the worst time of year to deal with any trees that have SOD or that are potentially suseptible or a carrier of SOD (the list is growing fast) is during the wet (winter/fall here) season. Same thing for Port Orford Cedar diseases here in west Oregon.

So seemingly not all regions/tree species have the same timing for doing tree work or avoiding it during certain seasons and/or for certain vectors... actually they may be the opposite.

 

[treeseer]

It is still cosmetic, Dang!- Where were you guys with the stuff hundreds of years ago? Sorry, sarcastic, but it is dressing and not needed.
Jeff Lovstrom

Cracking increases surface area for and depth of infection.

Sealant can prevent cracking.

Therefore sealant can lessen infection (and look good cosmetically too, I agree.)

Which of the above sentences do you think is wrong, Jeff?

 

[Scurrytree]

Tree paint?

I feel petroleum based tree wound paint can sometimes harm a tree. People tend to put it on to thick. Then when it bakes in the sun it will crack leaving a nice little home for insects. BUTTT!! If you use a regular cheap black spray paint from your local hardware store it should work just fine to protect from oak wilt. The idea is to help block the evaporation of tree sap that attracts the disease infested beetles are attracted too. While this def. isn't a cure all ,it should deter some beetle activity as well as dress up all those white eyes your customers love seeing.

 

[Slade McCuiston]

This used to be a more common practice back in my granddad's era, but he told me to never dress tree-wounds. I take his word for it, quite simply because nobody has bothered to prove to me that he's wrong, and it seems to be working for me, so why try to fix something that isn't broken? I just can't see how putting foreign material on a tree's cut is going to make it better... But I can see where it would inhibit the tree from being able to seal off the wound as fast. When you get cut, you shouldn't wear a bandage until you're healed - that leads to infection, etc. Why do it on a tree?

 

[TNTreeHugger]

After reading this thread, it seems to be generally agreed painting a large tree wound, especially an oak in an area with oak wilt, could be beneficial to the tree rather than doing nothing.
White latex paint was mentioned most, but recently someone suggested black spray paint - which to my knowledge is oil based.

I realize my situation is way beyond the usual examples, but since more than half, maybe two thirds of the tree is still standing, I want to protect it from insect damage if that's possible.

Yay, or nay on painting the exposed part of the trunk?

 

[Seachaser]

if done properly, no paint. I paint grafts to prevent sun scald

 

[TNTreeHugger]

if done properly, no paint. I paint grafts to prevent sun scald View attachment 1176545

I'm asking about my oak tree that has a split trunk from storm damage.

 

[John Walsh]

No, I don't think how you make a cut is a big deal. There are a lot more important considerations.
What would you say is a worse case scenario, cutting off a 2" diameter branch on a 10" inch diameter, healthy, fast growing tree, while leaving a 1 foot stub and accidentally hitting the trunk with the saw, or doing a proper pruning cut, exactly on target, to a 2 foot diameter branch, on an over mature, slow growing tree, growing in compacted soil with construction damaged roots, during a drought?

It's great you think how you make your cuts is important, and to some extent it is, but you need to look at the bigger picture. Why are you making the cut? Can it be avoided? Can the removal be done in increments over several years? What can be done to improve the health of the tree before the cutting.
When you really get down to it, the actual cut is almost inconsequential.
I might argue that how you make a cut is as important as whether or not you use wound dressing, in some cases. Failure to use paint, could kill the tree outright.
By the way, what's a pram?

"Pram" is Brit-speak for baby carriage