Trunk injection for multi-stemmed Ash - question...

[TominKY]

I have a large multi-stemmed (total of four) ash that I will be treating with Arbor-Jet and Tree-Age. Each individual trunk is about 12" DBH. My question - do I attempt to inject the full circumference of each trunk, or only inject around the circumference of the main trunk below the level of where they intersect? I know that you generally try to inject on the root flares close to the ground, but logic would seem to dictate that you also need to inject the opposite sides of each individual trunk to get even distribution of the product.

Looking forward to some experienced feedback on this. Thanks in advance for all the help!

 

[ATH]

How low do they fork into the 4 stems?

 

[TominKY]

About 18" from the ground.

 

[TominKY]

Hey ATH, not sure if you saw my earlier reply. We are getting a nice heavy rain tonight, so tomorrow morning should be perfect to inject my trees. If I don't hear back, I am thinking I should inject as low as possible around the outside of the main trunk, and then maybe add some additional injections on the insides of the multi-stems. Sound reasonable? Obviously the idea is to get a good even distribution of the product up the trunk and into the upper canopy.

 

[ATH]

Sorry I missed your post until today! Did you do low the ground? That is what they recommend...I have not tried higher than that. I would focus on that - but injecting on the inside doesn't sound like a terrible idea. That is a little higher than "normal", but not out of the question given the circumstances. I certainly wouldn't inject that high in other circumstances as the best distribution happens when you are within 12".

Did you start injecting? If so, how did it go?

 

[TominKY]

Hi ATH! I did my big (25") single stemmed ash behind the house yesterday, and it went as smooth as butter. Uptake was awesome, as we had a nice soaking rain the night before. I started on the multi-stemmed one this morning but only got 8 of the 20 plugs installed and injected. I did keep them low (withing 12") on the outside. The ones I did this morning went fine, and since it was nice and cool this evening, I decided to give it a go for the next four. Learned a valuable lesson that you guys probably already knew - uptake is not so great in the evening! Saw a couple of plugs leaking product, so shut the valves and pulled the needles. I am going to reinstall them tomorrow morning and try to finish the job. Not sure how much product I lost, but probably going to inject a few extra ml's into those plugs to be safe. I probably pizzed about $20 down the trunk of that tree!

 

[TominKY]

The biggest issue with injecting on the inside of the individual trunks may be getting the drill and hammer in there to install the ArborPlugs. Not much room to work a drill or swing a hammer.

 

[TominKY]

Well, I tried injecting the individual trunks on the back side, and did not get very good uptake at all. I guess it is just too far up to get a good draw. I left the needles in for about 2 hours, and hardly got any uptake at all. Probably less than half the product was taken up. I finally had to shut it down and pull the needles out. I was able to recycle the product for use with one of my other trees.

Based on the measurements of each trunk, I should have injected about 470 ml of product into this tree if I go by the medium dosage of 10 ml/DBH. So I came up about 50-60 ml short. How do I proceed on this? Do I go back and inject additional product into the other plugs around the outside, or just leave it as is?

What do you guys do when you have a plug that simply will not take up any or much product? Do you move that needle to a plug that has good uptake to finish out the bottle, after the other plugs have finished?

I was doing another tree in the yard and one of the plugs became clogged. I did not realize this until all of the product had moved through the other three lines and I had one line left with some product in the individual line. Of course after I pulled the needle out and unclogged it, the uptake was just fine. I am inclined to go back and inject some more product into this one plug to ensure even distribution around the tree.

Thanks for all the help!