What can I put in a tree to fill a small cavity?

[Toddppm]

Was thinking of this today when I was checking a mulching job my guys just finished yesterday I noticed sawdust at the bottom of this tree ring in the new mulch. These guys were cleaning out this cavity in a Maple , it was kind of funny watching them walk to the edge and dump these pieces out the front door

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

why not sell a take down

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

ha..ha.. only jokeing ! GUY cant beleive you recomend foam ? i would agree with jamie 100% ''LEAVE THE TREE ALONE LET IT CODIT'' try again at educating the client after all your the proffesional called into look at the job

 

[a_lopa]

guy can you tell me how cabling,filling hollows or any other''tree care'' is actually a long term fix.if the tree is unsound replace it watch it grow.there are plenty of ''new trees'' to go around.your backward thinking and book reading are a blight to treeworkers.tree care books have gone through changes over last 20 yrs who is to say what is there know is right the best knowledge is local knowledge of rainfalls,soils, tree species.you shouldnt read books and then preach it.heck you may be wrong .although with your way of thinking thats impossible

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

ah so Shigo recomends filling with foam..i prefer the covering of holes with timber as shown on jamies post www.aie.org.uk much more pleasing to the eye

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Each case is individual; why not at least try to preserve what you have until replacement is well underway; then, why immediately stop there? Whether there is a target etc. in way of possible failure makes a lot of differance in the level of acceptable risk. i don't know about a long term fix for anything really gone awry and divebombing off the charts; but i think that cabling has it's merits in strategic posititons.

If the tree in question is part of a set, it's removal can affect wind loads increasing and possibly lessening part of other tree's stabilization (by touching at many times at high leverage position of support far from ground connection), limiting each other's movement; and being used to/dependant on that support and broken up wind.

Or something like that
:alien:

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by aussie_lopa
guy can you tell me how cabling,filling hollows or any other''tree care'' is actually a long term fix.
lopa, I've been in trees that were cabled decades before and were holding up well. Cleaning hollows can do harm if done wrong, and the possible benefit is much less clear to see than cabling. But done right it seldom does harm, and it's good to see what's inside the tree. I'd foam the hollow only after showing the owner the science behind leaving it alone and gently making them aware their fear of critters is irrational.(Most of them will come around if gently persuaded over time)
Then fight more serious battles.
if the tree is unsound replace it
If it's too unsound to correct to an acceptable level of risk, you're right. But first you must determine how unsound it is before making that decision, right? If I told most of my clients their trees needed to come down because ants were in a little hollow, they'd order me off the property and could prosecute for fraud. I'm serious--there are good laws over here against contractors who try to scare people into unneeded services.

you shouldnt read books and then preach it.heck you may be wrong

I'll take that chance--how else am I to learn anything? Books contain other people's research and experience--I'd be a fool to ignore that. I look things up and quote the author if I think s/he's right. If that sounds like preaching and doesn't belong on a "Commercial Tree Care forum", then what does? There is a forum for logging here too. If later studies show they're not, then ok, go from there.
I agree with the ISA here:
http://www.treesaregood.com/treecare/mature_care.asp
"...removal is a last resort."
Most tree owners who pay well long term agree.

 

[Tree Machine]

If you are one to

Information written about trees, we all can sort through the hype and the help. Our industry publications strive to offer us the current and latest methods known, even though they may route through here before they go into print.

Dr. Alex has dedicated his life, many of us have, to the advancement of tree health, care and biology. He has universities at his fingertips, Grad student sdoing much of the legwork of his important research and a network (all of us) who practicwe what he preaches.

It is biology, guys. Methods, techniques, products and egos aside, the tree is a biological system and needs to be looked at relative to its condition, weather, and all other environmental factors.

CODIT Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees. This, biologically, succinctly and acronymically describes the desired state in wound closure in a plant, specifically, a tree. Trees have evolved two major reponses for dealing with damage to themselves. Over the billions of years they've been around, when a limb snaps off, the tree begins producing , at a branch collar or at a lateral branch, callus tissue. This is rapidly dividing wood cells that grow inward toward the wound center. The second response to loss of limbs, and this is a really cool trick, if you think about it, is to accelerate growth in other areas of the tree in an attempt to replace what was lost. This is how we treeguys can redirect the growth and stature and shape and balance and for and symmetry of a tree, by knowing the tree's innate biological response to how and where we cut.

Back to CODIT. This is a tree's only defense against the dominant and omnipresent wood-eating microinvader, FUNGUS.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Re: If you are one to

Originally posted by Tree Machine
dominant and omnipresent wood-eating microinvader, FUNGUS.

Man that is a nasty patch. Ganoderma lucidum(?) is so aggressive, it's hard for codit to form. It's popping up on a few storm-damaged trees here; massive efforts to invigorate the tree without invigorating the pest. Prognosis doubtful.

Re pubs, separating the help from the hype, yeah, and I would add the parroted "authoritative" advice that is so far from the scientific source it gets wronger each time it's repeated. lopa had a point about recommendations changing, but if you follow what's written by researchers and said and done by us folks in the field you won't get fooled too badly.

It IS all biology; viewing trees as living systems opens up much potential for working with their growth and defense patterns. Viewing trees as stationary objects often makes removal the recommended option because the viewer can't see all the potential for other management options. Seeing what they can be:Eye: is just as important as seeing what they are.

 

[Tree Machine]

Meuller speaks with much understanding

Thanks, Guy. You clearly get it.

If the tree's callus tissue can close over the wound, ahead of some fungus' desire to inhabit itself in the wound, and the callus has completely sealed off the wound site, the site is said to have been compartmentalized. This is a human -made term to describe this biological process that all of us, at our own levels, understands.

Callus tissue, after a new wound, forms best at a branch collar, or along the line of a lateral branch (in simplified terms). This is why we make our cuts these places, and we set the tree in a race with fungus; how big the wound is, and how good a compartmentalizer that species of tree is will decide if compartmentalization happens before fungal infestation takes over.

So why does CODIT work. In a CODIT scenario, fungus can almost be assumed to have taken hold, to some degree. In understanding the fungus better, it has three needs; wood, water and oxygen. Dead wood, to be specific, as almost all fungi are saprophytic, that they eat dead wood, and cause it to decay, rendering it back to soil. That's swell, for a fallen tree, but this is a living tree, so why is a fungus taking up housing in a wound site???

Fresh dead wood, unhabitated by any other organism. Inside the cambial ring, the wood inside a tree is technically dead. The thin cambium and the bark are the barriers to fungal invation. In a limb snapoff or a pruning cut, a fresh site for a passing spore is opened up to the first floating takers.

If the wound site is relatively dry, the better the chance for the fungus to move slow. If the wound site is small, better the chance for wound closure and CODIT to occur.

Why does CODIT work? In the tree, sealing it's wound site off from the world of microscopic airbornes also closes its inner self to insects, moisture penetration, and oxygen. If the fungus is in there, it is compartmentalized and choked off of its necessary water and oxygen. The fungal body ceases growth, dies, and the tree lives on with a defect in the wood, but the limb or trunk in an otherwise healthy state.

If the wound is too big, and the tree never will have a chance to close over, the fungus will win. CODIT 101

A responsibility as an arborist is to gauge, as best he can, whether or not the cut he makes will ever have a chance to close over. If we cut a big limb based on a client's whimsical idea that it shouldn't be there, then what you are doing, in biological reality, is handing that tree down a death sentence by virtue of inflicting on it a progressive, degenerative condition. What ensues is a slow, long, untimely death whereby the tree is cast into a futile battle with mother nature by YOU. Take your responsibilities seriously.

 

[Tree Machine]

Store those biological notes for the moment, and let's move to the thread opener's small cavity. How deep is the cavity. Does the cavity point up? Can it hold water? Can bugs take up housing in there? How old is the wound? Was it caused by the limb dying, a snapoff, or a pruning cut. Does sun shine on it? Top side or under side of the limb? On which side of the trunk. Positive slope, negative slope, or on a vertical surface?

These are valid questions as to how to approach a cavity, always keeping in mind the like biological outcome of your treatment.

Scraping out the gunk should be first. Here's a curved cabinet scraper from a woodworking store that works great.

If the wound is larger, and showing decay, carving with the tip of your chainsaw may be warranted. Technical, precision and sorta dangerous work to smooth the inner surface of the cavity, allowing it to dry more quickly after it gets wet. This is classic tree surgery. It's why we are sometimes called tree doctors, because we understand the biology of the situation, and do our best to give the tree an advantage.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Tree Machine
Scraping out the gunk should be first. Here's a curved cabinet scraper from a woodworking store that works great.Cool looking tool.

If the wound is larger, and showing decay, carving with the tip of your chainsaw may be warranted. Technical, precision and sorta dangerous work [/B]

I use chainsaw tip to clean surface cavities, but won't go too deep with it unless it's all fluffy rot. Dangerous as you say to break boundary. There is a negative side to allowing inner cavity to dry quicker; what if the rot is insulating the cambium on the outer shell?

 

[Tree Machine]

Fungus and cavities

I can't speak for insulating abilities of rot, a.k.a. decay, though I don't feel the tree can benefit enough to substantiate letting the rotted wood stay there. If you're looking for insulative value, foam filler would be better than rotting wood.

If the fungus has gone too far, and it's running up and down the xylem tubules of the trunk or limb, then the trunk or limb is hosed. If the limb has the cavity on the topside, and holds water, most trees will have this limb continue to weaken at that point and eventually fail. We've all seen it.

If the trunk wound has gone too far, I don't feel it matters what you do, how you patch it or fill it or treat it; if the fungus is in there and has taken hold and is growing, that's nature. The tree is toast. It could be a long, slow decline and death over decades of time. Be a good arborist. Don't be the cause of this by making your trunk cuts too big

The best we can do with an established cavity is to catch it early enough to slow the fungus' inhabiting the wood, long enough for compartmentalization to occur, and water and oxygen to be cut off, and the tree continue on with a defect, rather than a permanent degenerative condition.

Back to the original start of the thread, assuming we DO treat the cavity early enough, it's a small cavity, and should it be filled, and with what? Ask just this question:

Will water be able to get into the cavity?

That would be my first and primary question. If 'no' then smooth the interior with the chainsaw tip (carving), careful to not disturb the cambium and new callus. Or scrape the cavity out with a tool, using the same care with regard to the cambium and callus, and let the tree carry on.

if 'yes', an effort should be made to correct this water holding ability, either by 1) creating a drainage, or 2) by filling the cavity to prevent water entry.

This places the decision to fill more on keeping the wound / cavity site dry, than offering some futile effort at restoring integrity.

If water can get in, bugs can get in. Bugs and fungus coexist to affect the health of our trees. Keeping bugs and fungus out of the inside of the tree (by ultimately ensuring cavity dryness) would be my primary reasons for choosing to fill a cavity.

 

[rumination]

How do you create drainage without drilling a hole in the tree?

 

[Dadatwins]

I saw some old large multi-stemmed Norway Maple trees in Cape Cod Mass. that had small PVC drain tubes running from trunk where multi-stems caused rainwater to pool. The tubes were actually drilled up into the trunk of the tree and allowed any water that would pool up to drain out. Seemed like a neat system to keep pooling water problem fixed.

 

[Tree Machine]

Keeping the water out

Here's one way:

 

[Tree Machine]

Here's a simple way to prevent a cavity from taking hold.

As with this old cut, evidence that the fungus has taken hold clearly shows in the discolored, light, punky-looking wood. Smoothing allows water to evaporate off more quickly than a rough, textured surface, and can gain the tree an advantage in out-racing the fungus.

In this case, the tip of the chainsaw was used to smooth and cove the interior wood, and maybe a little nick at the bottom to assure complete drainage.

I liked this oak and went a step further in helping seal out moisture by coating the site with cheese wax, and melting it in with a propane torch (also being delicate and careful as to not fry the cambium and callus). I don't do this often, at least with wax, anyway, I've done these more as an experiment and check them over the years for progress.

Cheese wax is good, but there are moisture sealant products that are higher tech, easier to apply and lend themselves to a wider variety of uses than cheese wax, which really can't be used for much beyond grafting, myco culture and this technique of sealing out moisture on coved wound sites. Cheese wax is soft, has a low melting point and remains pliable in the cold, cold weather.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Re: Fungus and cavities

Originally posted by Tree Machine
I don't feel the tree can benefit enough to substantiate letting the rotted wood stay there. If you're looking for insulative value, foam filler would be better than rotting wood. If you're not sure, don't remove it.

If the fungus it's running up and down the xylem tubules , then the trunk or limb is hosed. If the limb has the cavity on the topside, and holds water, most trees will have this limb continue to weaken at that point and eventually fail. We've all seen it. Keeping bugs and fungus out of the inside of the tree (by ultimately ensuring cavity dryness) would be my primary reasons for choosing to fill a cavity.

tm I don't think water is so evil that we should be carving through cambium to drain it. nononono. What I've said is: "Cut around the infected trunk or branch until you come close to healthy cambium. Take care not to cut into healthy bark or wood. Excavation of wounds is still viewed with skepticism in some circles precisely because of the fear that careless digging will result in more damage.

Plunging a saw tip into healthy wood and bark to drain a cavity seems extremely destructive. It may well expand the cavity, which will go deeper, and require draining again. I was totally agreeing with you up to this point, but you've got to better substantiate your decisions to invade healthy wood before you're going to get much agreement.

 

[jamie]

drains eh?

ive always been taught this and i've heard my boss quote it to people.

drains will allow the wood to become wet and subseqently dry out....what do most organisims require moisture and O2. leave it with a pool and they will use up the O2 and the water will become anaerobic.....life wont persist.

jamie

 

[NeTree]

What about anaerobic bacteria?