Sugar maple limb: possible canker / wound causing concern. Please help assess risks.

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

WackyTomato

ArboristSite Lurker
Joined
Oct 17, 2017
Messages
11
Reaction score
0
Location
Canada
Apologies - posted a similar post in the wrong section. Here we go again.

Dear all,

I'm glad I found this forum. I would really need some of you experienced folks here to have a look at these pictures and recommend a course of action. This here is an established approx 50 years old+ sugar maple. One of the main branch seems to have a significant canker in it (refer to pictures). I am not sure if that is a canker caused by rot, animals, or anything else OR an old healing wound caused by the pruning / cracking of an old branch. The problem is that if that particular limb cracks and - God forbid! - falls off, the roof of the house might get the top of that limb. The top of that limb is composed of thin-ish / medium sized branches, but this could still cause some significant damage nonetheless.

It has to be noted that the foliage of that particular branch is perfectly fine and it looks healthy otherwise.

What do you guys think? I uploaded four pictures to this thread (the picture from the front of the house is Google Street view. I have since had the sugar maple pruned and thinned out and the arborist that came to give me the quote did not mention anything about the possible issue I'm talking about here. Not sure if I'm being paranoid...!)

Thank you very much.

EDIT: The red arrow on the picture is simply to give you guys an idea of where the branch is (behind the tree). The canker / wound I'm talking about is at the base of the limb, closer to the trunk.
 

Attachments

  • 0t7ONLC.jpg
    0t7ONLC.jpg
    605.4 KB
  • 6UwvKXt.png
    6UwvKXt.png
    2.5 MB
  • pJDSekH.jpg
    pJDSekH.jpg
    591.2 KB
  • SuwI4vR.jpg
    SuwI4vR.jpg
    265.5 KB
That is just an old wound. If I had to guess, there was a limb there which was broken and pulled some bark with it.

It has developed reaction wood (also called wound wood or callous tissue) well, and I probably wouldn't have mentioned it either without being asked by the client. I don't see it as a structural concern based on those pictures.
 
That is just an old wound. If I had to guess, there was a limb there which was broken and pulled some bark with it.

It has developed reaction wood (also called wound wood or callous tissue) well, and I probably wouldn't have mentioned it either without being asked by the client. I don't see it as a structural concern based on those pictures.

Thank you for your answer. I'd be curious to hear from other arborists for corroboration purposes :)
 
Back
Top