Deodar thinning, are we getting it wrong?

[Mick Dempsey]

When I started in 95, we used to deadwood the bollocks out of deodars, they looked great, clean and tidy.

I noticed passing the same trees months/years later that they often had twisted broken branches.

I started to think that this was counter productive and have chatted about it with others who have noticed similar consequences.

Anyway this deodar went over in Leamington Spa earlier this month, seriously injuring a young man and his family.

Deodars don’t habitually tip over in one go in my experience, normally they die or break apart over time.

 

I look at this level of ‘cleaning/lifting/thinning/deadwooding’ and I wonder if this was a contributing factor to it’s going over in one.

Are we lumping all trees in one ‘one size fits all’ category for trying to make them safer in high risk situs?

All thoughts welcome.

 

[Mark Bolam]

Quite possibly Mick.

 

I know @MattyF has had experience with conifers that have shat themselves AFTER being thinned.

[tree-fancier123]

no idea about the effects of thinning on windthrow, but I wanted to find a picture of a nice mature specimen for comparison with the one above that had been worked on, maybe the one in my picture has had work over the years, but it is the right tree in the right place - i.e. had room to achieve its natural shape

 

[Mick Dempsey]

Looks denser, deodar branches twist when over cleaned/thinned, changes the dynamics of the whole tree imo.

[tree-fancier123]

pure speculation - but the one in the photo above with its bottom wide low branches intact - they are the widest part of the canopy and could act as a counterweight in gales

[tree-fancier123]

that one on streetview looks like a series of crown lifts over the years too - to keep it growing in too small a spot, making it top heavy

[MattyF]

Mick I’ve dead wooded big cedars and they have literally shat off large limbs within days to months after..not all but quite a few especially outside exposed trees.
I’m convinced after deadwood a number of large conifers species that it opens up wind tunnels and creates a lions tail effect resulting in wind throw..whilst it looks great it’s made me think when quoting, we where asked to dead wood about 60 pines in a church yard a few years back but I talked them out of it but they insisted on some over the roadside and a few over a car park , guess which ones failed the next storm and I think I even tip reduced a few limbs as I knew it was going to happen. 

[kram]

From the other side: looks to me that its been topped in the past as theres a large number of parallel stems.

[Mick Dempsey]

I don’t think it’s about counterweight, it’s about wind effect being concentrated at the top of the tree, creating more force on the base as opposed to more of an even block effect on the whole tree.

Clearly I’m no Applied Mechanics student, but i’d be interested in theories.

[kram]

Aninteresting feature on street view is to look back in the same view over previous years