If there is any doubt that spike wounds cause significant injury to trees then data can be found in Shigo research and photographs in his many works. No conjecture or pure theory....hard....cold....FACT. It is doubtful spiking advocates will have any interest in discovering this. The arguement that sugar tapping has not killed any trees.....
These trees suffer damage as well and this also can be viewed in Shigo material. The damage?.....opening for infection courts and insects and insects carrying infection....dieback in conductive and storage tissue and when/if these coalesce this becomes compounded. The tree redirecting energy it otherwise would use for growth and maintenance for normal function to have to redirect it to emergency mode.
Do all trees succumb to death causing, health depreciating, structural compromising aftermath? Ofcourse not. Some are just unlucky and others have had/will have other stresses that lead to the "straw that breaks the camel's back" scenario that will finish it off. What is the key factor that is at hand here?
WE (the tree doctor...the entity hired and compensated to HELP the tree) are the ones that CAUSED the degradation/death of that which we were entrusted and paid to improve. Is it ok to degrade or compromise "less important" members of the tree community (ROW trees)? Probably not, but what can be done here?
Shigo always told us if the right tool is not available for doing the job....invent it. If someone cannot get their fat asses up a tree to do the work properly or in the amount of time allocated to do it by say a Utility manager then in the past they gotta put on the cheaters and tear the tree a new ahole. In the residential scene the fatty is outta a job or he gets narced out by the ISA squeelers.
New tool invented....wraptor. Send the fatty up on one to do the job and then he can send it down for the next fatty to do another one.
The arguement that even what the non spiker is doing up there is causing injury (pruning cuts) is a weak one. What the pruner is doing has specific reasons (theoretically) and only what has to be removed is removed. Cuts are made removing only branch material and not into the collar breaking defense boundaries. Do boundaries sometimes get broken? Ofcourse but if care is taken....certainly not as much as the hack would do as he also makes flush cuts since he does not believe spike wounds cause significant injury...why would he believe flush cuts cause any harm?
I distinctly remember Shigo saying to a group that a tool that can curve around a collar that has an inconsistent surface while cutting should be invented.
Nothing pretty or perfect about compromise.
