Thoughts on this pine?

[Dilz]

Had a little clamber around this old pine today to check out a couple of things.  I have not had to deal too much with metal bracing and never of this sort.  The pine has dropped a few branches, and the owners are a bit concerned.  Resistance drilling and core samples have not shown there to be any extensive decay in the base of the tree. Some decay - small bird nesting holes higher up, but nothing looking too bad.  The included union of the two stems seems to me to be quite sound.  

 

No one knows how old the banding/bracing is and its clearly been there for a while.  The initial thoughts were to fell the tree but the wish to retain it.  I have given them a few options based on what i have seen.  My main concern is the tree snapping at the points of bracing. Interested to see what other people think.  Got a few photos for folk to look at. 

 

 

 

 

[Steve Bullman]

Very cool sequence of photos and an interesting find.  I’d say there’s a good possibility of the tree failing at that point.  Different tree I know, but I cleared up a wind blown leylandii once that had been girdled 10ft up in a similar fashion.  It literally sheared clean through at that point 

[Dilz]

Thats what i have heard about such banding - that the tree snaps at that point.  There was talk about removing the banding and rebracing with a dynamic system but im pretty much against that for this situation.   

[Steve Bullman]

Yeah I would be too.  I think the damage is already done at this point.  Accept liability or fell

[Darrin Turnbull]

Second system at a different level 

[Dilz]

The client is rather keen on keeping this tree in some sort of form. So one option put forward was to hammer off the top down to the first or second brace point and leave the lower canopy intact. Talks about bringing the stem height down below the old braces made me bit concerned about exciting things happening at the included union when they are taken off.  THe client understands that the level of pruning involved in that kind of operation is in no way good for the tree however by retaining the lower branches it would hopefully allow the tree to stay standing in some form for many years as well as providing habitat.