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Staged tree reductions - Your opinion


Steve Bullman
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Hi Steve.

Ive been involved in a few staged reductions at 1st, 2nd and 3rd prunes. The aim was to mimic retrenchment and leave quite a stout but green tree. The ancient tree forum used have information about doing this so could be worth contacting or looking on their website.

This pruning was spread over many years, with a pair done over 15 years (once every 5 years). 

Of the trees where I did the first prune many of them had obvious inner crowns to prune back to or had already started to retrench. 

The aim of the first prune was subordinate the leaders and encourage the growth of the inner crown. Over a period of time hopefully this inner crown will have  matured enough and show enough vigour to then reduce back to. This would be repeated until the tree is at its final smaller crown structure. The interval of each prune was based on the trees response to the previous work. I suppose this could be 1 to any number of seasons depending on tree. 

It is worth noting that this retrenchment pruning will leave much larger wounds than your British Standard pruning but is arguably a preferable option to a fell depending on the context of the tree. 

Of the trees I have done, many of them were structurally compromised but still vigorous. The trees were not in a position where it would be safe or practical to let them fall to bits in their own time but their retention was still desirable.

I cant comment on the success of this sort of work over an oaks timescale but the final prunes I did looked great and the trees are still doing well  over 5 years later. I know some oaks that had this work done, finishing at least 10 years ago and I would be surprised if they did not have many more decades in them.

 

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8 minutes ago, Mullany said:

Hi Steve.

Ive been involved in a few staged reductions at 1st, 2nd and 3rd prunes. The aim was to mimic retrenchment and leave quite a stout but green tree. The ancient tree forum used have information about doing this so could be worth contacting or looking on their website.

This pruning was spread over many years, with a pair done over 15 years (once every 5 years). 

Of the trees where I did the first prune many of them had obvious inner crowns to prune back to or had already started to retrench. 

The aim of the first prune was subordinate the leaders and encourage the growth of the inner crown. Over a period of time hopefully this inner crown will have  matured enough and show enough vigour to then reduce back to. This would be repeated until the tree is at its final smaller crown structure. The interval of each prune was based on the trees response to the previous work. I suppose this could be 1 to any number of seasons depending on tree. 

It is worth noting that this retrenchment pruning will leave much larger wounds than your British Standard pruning but is arguably a preferable option to a fell depending on the context of the tree. 

Of the trees I have done, many of them were structurally compromised but still vigorous. The trees were not in a position where it would be safe or practical to let them fall to bits in their own time but their retention was still desirable.

I cant comment on the success of this sort of work over an oaks timescale but the final prunes I did looked great and the trees are still doing well  over 5 years later. I know some oaks that had this work done, finishing at least 10 years ago and I would be surprised if they did not have many more decades in them.

 

Good work! any photos?

 

 

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On 27/02/2019 at 19:56, Gary Prentice said:

Using woodchip, the sugars released by the breakdown of the chip itself will encourage the right type of fungi for tree itself, rather than throwing some 'works for everything'  spores that are often not even viable anyway. 

 

Sorry not of fan of mycorrizal inoculations, I don't believe we understand the relationships involved enough to be able to produce anything that isn't largely snake oil as yet.

Recommended by the royal horticultural society for whatever that's worth. 

 

I've grown a fair few er.. plants with the stuff and some side by side comparisons. Shit works, with plants. 

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