Stubs and deadwooding?

[beastmaster]

I have a couple of questions I've been wondering about. First: If your in a tree and there are old stubs left over from a poor pruning job or the gardener making a few cut, or even an old broken branch, is it better to leave it because its already healed, or take it at the branch collar and opening up a new wound. I know the ISA answer, and in an ornamental you want it to look nice, but if its an old cut and the tree has already compartmentalize, bad cut or not the damage is done, should you still make a proper pruning cut at the collar or are you just opening a new wound? I take them and make a proper cut at the collar, but in nature when a branch breaks or sheds there is often times a dead stub going to the collar and trees have been doing alright for a long time before we started helping them.
My second question: I often recommend dead wooding a tree. I have a whole list of reasons why it'll make your tree healthier. I picked up all these reasons from others and now after all these years there truths, but I have never read of a study or research that validates these reasons. Does it make a tree healthier or detours insects and pathogens?(looks better and safer, true)Maybe I think to much, but before replying ask your self where you got your info from?
I probably have the same knowledge as most of you, but are we right? Convince me. It wasn't that long ago the best Arborist were drilling and filling cavitys, putting tar on fresh cuts, cutting the canopy of a tree to make up for rootloss, etc. What future myths might we be doing? Beastmaster

 

[newsawtooth]

I'm with you Beast and remove most stubs because home owners can see them. I see some old stubs I've cut that have sealed well and others that haven't. Combination of a poor placement on my part and slow sealing trees. Mixed bag, but I know what people expect. Shigo, for the most part recommended as you do, against removing old stubs. The thought process is that the tree is compartmentalizing the old stub and a new cut is a new wound. Tough sell aesthetically. Which is one of the three tenets of urban forestry. Safety, clearance, and aesthetics. Quite frankly, the only one that makes me money is aesthetics, so where appropriate, stubs old stubs are removed. But I digress. As to your other deadwood question, it has been discussed quite extensively at the Tree Buzz. There is really nothing I can add to that very involved discussion.

 

[treeseer]

Some confusion here: "I know the ISA answer, and in an ornamental you want it to look nice, but if its an old cut and the tree has already compartmentalize, bad cut or not the damage is done, should you still make a proper pruning cut at the collar."

If the collar has moved out, the "ISA and ANSI rule" is like always, to cut just outside living tissue. Reread the books/standards/articles and you will see this repeated. If your client wants you to open a new and bigger wound ro get rid of a "stub" with callus growth, it should be easy to demonstrate why not. attached covers that and the deadwood dead horse.

 

[derwoodii]

Mom would say, dont pick ya scabs, you'll heal better. Just as tree may seal better. Good question part 2 Shigo would say reduce harbours of decay courts, so dead wooding likey better but unsure if its been studied empiracly.

If ya client wants pretty wear a dress while you work as you advsie whats best for the trees and their $ wallet in the longer term.

 

[sgreanbeans]

If it has healed, ugly or not, I leave it. Nasty, rotten, ugly homeowner/ naturally occurring breakage stubs that have not healed, they go.
On the dead wood. I take it all, except the little bitty stuff. Sometimes, depending on the tree. I will let the customer know that just taking the deadwood out of a tree may make it look bare. Ever done an Ash that has never been touched!
Dead wooding makes it safer for both humans and the trees. If ya have a large chunk of deadwood in a back yard, where there are kids, bad things can happen. Take that same chunk, as it lets go, and bounces down the tree, busting and tearing anything it touches on the way down. Hurting the tree, opening up wounds that can not heal properly. When it stops and gets lodged up there somewhere, now it is a rub. Every time the wind blows, the tree moves, the lodged chunk wears away the bark, at its resting point, eventually opening up another wound, that the tree is constantly trying to heal, but never does. Constantly diverting energy from other functions. There are many more reasons, bugs, disease, decay, etc. If large branches that are dead are not removed, when they let go,if they break at the collar, often they peal real bad, creating a really bad wound that the tree will never heal, sometimes creating a cavity at the top of the breaking point. Water and leaves collect in it, crating a whole new problem for the tree.
Couldn't tell ya where exactly I got my info from, books, you guys, those guys, books, did I mention books! Mainly from experience. I revisit a lot of trees that I have maintained for years, monitoring their progress as I help them along.

Got a quick one- Some of you may remember me talking about the hippie climber I hired,then fired. He was a self described Arborist who "just hadn't taken the test yet" I sent him to deadwood an oak. Went to check his work, he pruned a 10-12 inch dia, 8ft long,chunk of deadwood, as in, he made nice little pruning cuts on it, as if it where live! In other words, he deadwooded some deadwood!
Idiot!

 

[derwoodii]

Got a quick one- Some of you may remember me talking about the hippie climber I hired,then fired. He was a self described Arborist who "just hadn't taken the test yet" I sent him to deadwood an oak. Went to check his work, he pruned a 10-12 inch dia, 8ft long,chunk of deadwood, as in, he made nice little pruning cuts on it, as if it where live! In other words, he deadwooded some deadwood!
Idiot!

HA seen this just last months a local power co target pruning dead trees under the power lines, just bloody brilliant.
I.ll add that dead wood or stubs I may leave when a critter habitat site established or an opportunity seen in future. To upset some readers down here a few have been boring and hacking holes into trees too construct habitat holes, this has been cause of much debate.

 

[Bermie]

As per Treeseer...

As a rule of thumb, large old stubs only get cut back to just in front of live tissue, wherever that may be, not necessarily back to the collar.

However I have worked a 300 yr old Tamarind, and it had some large 12" stubs about 3-4' long, old bad pruning cuts, I cut one, it had perfectly sound wood back at the collar, once I discovered that I left the rest, the old tree was dealing with the stubs just fine, and I didn't want to divert energy to unnecessary wound closure. Where there was an evident demarcation between sound and rotten wood I cut it to just in front of the sound wood.

I am always struck by how good a tree looks that has been deadwooded, I swear even sometimes you could feel it take a big breath of relief to have gotten rid of all that nasty dead stuff clogging up the canopy.

 

[Regoria]

I'm with you Beast and remove most stubs because home owners can see them. I see some old stubs I've cut that have sealed well and others that haven't. Combination of a poor placement on my part and slow sealing trees. Mixed bag, but I know what people expect. Shigo, for the most part recommended as you do, against removing old stubs. The thought process is that the tree is compartmentalizing the old stub and a new cut is a new wound. Tough sell aesthetically. Which is one of the three tenets of urban forestry. Safety, clearance, and aesthetics. Quite frankly, the only one that makes me money is aesthetics, so where appropriate, stubs old stubs are removed. But I digress. As to your other deadwood question, it has been discussed quite extensively at the Tree Buzz. There is really nothing I can add to that very involved discussion.

I think weary out trees that have no hopes to be grown up again... Should be cut off, They not only occupy lot of space but also they they can make soil less productive...