Shear crack on large lateral Cedar branch

[AJStrees]

Noticed this the other day while doing an informal survey of tree state around the Estate I work on. 

 

This Cedar got a hell of a kicking in the 87 hurricane and lost a large section of the upper bole. It has recovered since then and grown some pretty hefty lateral limbs but unfortunately the weight at the ends is now causing the biggest limb to start a shear crack through it.  Had some big old down pours the other day and wonder if a bit of the old SBD might be going on as a result. Serious amounts of water came down overnight, the lake rose by about 4 inches in one night. 

 

Should have pruned the weight off it sooner. 

[Mick Dempsey]

I watch cedars in the wind and you get a lot of twisting, I’ll venture that’s what caused that crack.

[AJStrees]

7 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

I watch cedars in the wind and you get a lot of twisting, I’ll venture that’s what caused that crack.

You are probably 100% right in that observation Mr Dempsey. 

 

It certainly does look like it's twisting. Plus there is a lot of weight up top to add to all of that. 

 

Just a bit of snow has caused havoc with our other big cedars with the weight load on their branches. Regular pruning is probably the key to all of this. 

 

 

[Mick Dempsey]

Joe Newton made a very interesting post recently about deadwooding cedars.

He opined that it causes (or speculated that it does) along with the sort of thinning that occurs when we deadwood, branch failure due to altering the way the wind passes through the tree.

[Stubby]

3 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Joe Newton made a very interesting post recently about deadwooding cedars.

He opined that it causes (or speculated that it does) along with the sort of thinning that occurs when we deadwood, branch failure due to altering the way the wind passes through the tree.

I remember that  observation by Joe and found it interesting . Torsional cracks like the above  are quite common in Cedars around abouts .  Joe could well be right .

[AJStrees]

 

8 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Joe Newton made a very interesting post recently about deadwooding cedars.

He opined that it causes (or speculated that it does) along with the sort of thinning that occurs when we deadwood, branch failure due to altering the way the wind passes through the tree.

Sounds interesting. Will check it out, thanks. 

[AJStrees]

12 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Joe Newton made a very interesting post recently about deadwooding cedars.

He opined that it causes (or speculated that it does) along with the sort of thinning that occurs when we deadwood, branch failure due to altering the way the wind passes through the tree.

 

5 minutes ago, Stubby said:

I remember that  observation by Joe and found it interesting . Torsional cracks like the above  are quite common in Cedars around abouts .  Joe could well be right .

Do either of you remember where you saw that from Joe?

 

Would be good to read up on it. 

[Mick Dempsey]

Tell a lie, it was @MattyF on the Mature Oak Pruning thread

[AJStrees]

3 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Tell a lie, it was @MattyF on the Mature Oak Pruning thread

ok ta. 

 

Will have a gander on here and see what I can find. 

[Stubby]

2 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Tell a lie, it was @MattyF on the Mature Oak Pruning thread

Yep . I remember reading it , Matty it was !