Hamas big reduction/pruning thread!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

About the 30-40% reductions you and ness seem to be in discussion about, in my opinion no attack on anyone blah blah blah. It is basic chemical biology(well as basic as chemical biology can get) that removal of huge amount of foliage from a tree at any one time is bad news and yes trees have an amazing ability to recover and live on but Surely large pruning cuts and loss of foliage is not a good thing for the tree and most likely swerves more to what the customer wants then whats best for the tree. This debate however is very healthy Arb is young and its important to push for the correct answers in what seems to be a grey area for many. But to be seen as the profession we all want arb to be seen as we need to be more consistant with what we tell our customers I also realise we are all in a business and need to earn money, but i will stick to my morals and what I believe is right. Like ness says only time will tell..............when all Tonys trees die...Joke!

 

I have no problem with sarcasm and cheeky jokes at all, its also my sense of humour, my angst was about something else, something on a different and pointless level.

 

There are a lot of people that think my trees willl become sick and or die, this is such a ridiculous statement, there are many tens of if not hundreds of thousands of trees ive worked within a 25 mile radius of home that are fine healthy and well formed, I am going to document as many as I can get accses to.

 

arboriculture is as you say a young industry, the work however is as old as the hills, the practitioners knowledge is widely disregarded, but it is changing very very quickly at this current time.

[John Shutler]

there are many tens of if not hundreds of thousands of trees ive worked within a 25 mile radius of home .

 

 

is that a bit of an exageration tony, if we said youd worked on 100000 trees over your 25yr career that would mean you had worked on 10.95 trees every day a year without stopping. you said yourself that that lawsons took one and a half days

[Stephen Blair]

Tony drives a Harvester:)

[HCR]

The trees that have been pollarded or coppiced have been done from an early age. The tree has adapted.

 

Interesting point. What is the specific adaptation mechanism that means that a tree is better equipped to deal with the second pollarding than the first?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

is that a bit of an exageration tony, if we said youd worked on 100000 trees over your 25yr career that would mean you had worked on 10.95 trees every day a year without stopping. you said yourself that that lawsons took one and a half days

 

I didnt do the math, but i did after this remark John!

 

Being very conservative, very very rare tree takes two days often more than 1 tree a day, sometimes upto 17 semi matures in a day, lets say 42 working weeks in a year, as I am employed though in my defence was not for most of my career. so lets say 2 per day as a fair average, 5 days a week for 42 weeks a year, 420 per annum, 25 years in the game, equates to 10,500 trees. so bit of an exaggeration but did not think anyone would be so pedantic,

 

Tony drives a Harvester:)

 

No stephen, I AM THE HARVESTER! lol

 

Interesting point. What is the specific adaptation mechanism that means that a tree is better equipped to deal with the second pollarding than the first?

 

I will be interested in the response to this question!

[T & C Tree Services]

Interesting point. What is the specific adaptation mechanism that means that a tree is better equipped to deal with the second pollarding than the first?

 

I believe that when trees have most or all of their primary branches removed they put majority of their energy into producing what's called embryonic tissue (found mainly in young trees) and using this to rapidly callous the made cuts. The tree is therefore more adapted to a second pollard wether it be 1year or 5years due to the energy stores held within this embryonic tissue. The cuts second time round would likely be smaller and more numerous therefore callousing even more rapidly. Pollards tend to cope well against pathogens also due to the numerous CODIT barriers produced.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I believe that when trees have most or all of their primary branches removed they put majority of their energy into producing what's called embryonic tissue (found mainly in young trees) and using this to rapidly callous the made cuts. The tree is therefore more adapted to a second pollard wether it be 1year or 5years due to the energy stores held within this embryonic tissue. The cuts second time round would likely be smaller and more numerous therefore callousing even more rapidly. Pollards tend to cope well against pathogens also due to the numerous CODIT barriers produced.

 

The first half isnt strictly accurate, zylem certainly in diffuse porus woods holds starch reserves, I always think of trees like batteries or sponges of water and sugar/starch. Once the wood portion has become dysfunctional it no longer functions.

 

Regarding the pollarding and pathogen resilience, its actualy more to do with the forcing of lower growth, better transport by encouraging shorter distances and younger more active channels in the cambium. More efficient more biomechanicaly optimised too.

 

IMO which may of course be gunned down at will.

[T & C Tree Services]

Ok. . .you know where I'm coming from.

[Ness]

Interesting point. What is the specific adaptation mechanism that means that a tree is better equipped to deal with the second pollarding than the first?

 

We know individual trees adapt to their environment, ie the stunted tree on a fellside. Oak, Ash, Sycamore, Rowan etc can do this and survive for many years because they are already some what adapted to this climate, but you would not expect to see a Catalpa up there. It would take many more years of adaptation to populate the hillside, if it could propagate at all.

 

A tree pruned in it's formative years every year will create pollard points,at which it is able to regenerate leaf cover without the need for profuse epicormic growth/water shoots.

European pollards live for many years like this, without forming the cavity issues you will get from 'topping'. Weakly attached vertical growth which will fail when the next generation of homeowner fails to maintain the tree and finds a thirty foot branch on their car in the morning.

This is basic. We have all climbed these trees and had to multi anchor as the limbs are sitting on a nice open cavity unseen from the ground. The only saving grace is that they are usually full of water preventing decay fungi finishing the job earlier than the wind.

 

Coppice works the same way. These trees have been grown for timber to order. Without chainsaws our predecessors harvested the timber at the right size. Not felling a six foot diameter Oak and then making gates with an axe.

The regrowth would be constantly managed from the start, always having succession from different age trees.

Sorry I did not get back earlier, pesky kids, had to play Ben 10!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Ness-We know individual trees adapt to their environment, ie the stunted tree on a fellside. Oak, Ash, Sycamore, Rowan etc can do this and survive for many years because they are already some what adapted to this climate, but you would not expect to see a Catalpa up there. It would take many more years of adaptation to populate the hillside, if it could propagate at all.

 

I have never seen catalpas in their ancient and natural environment so could not possibly comment on that

 

A tree pruned in it's formative years every year will create pollard points,at which it is able to regenerate leaf cover without the need for profuse epicormic growth/water shoots.

European pollards live for many years like this, without forming the cavity issues you will get from 'topping'. Weakly attached vertical growth which will fail when the next generation of homeowner fails to maintain the tree and finds a thirty foot branch on their car in the morning.

This is basic. We have all climbed these trees and had to multi anchor as the limbs are sitting on a nice open cavity unseen from the ground. The only saving grace is that they are usually full of water preventing decay fungi finishing the job earlier than the wind.

 

Poplars, sycamores and willows maybe, but beech Oak ash all return from pollarding and continue to develop pretty normaly. A visit to ANY of britins ancient woodlands will prove this.

 

Limbs can tear out of a maiden that has no defects, a pollard can go un pollarded for 0ver 100years. there are examples for both sides, which cleary illustrates that what you describe is more to do with individuals rather than the whole population or species type.

 

Those massive knuckles we see in those pollards are often just as hollow as any other pollarded tree, like I said its just a skin of living tissue.

 

Coppice works the same way. These trees have been grown for timber to order. Without chainsaws our predecessors harvested the timber at the right size. Not felling a six foot diameter Oak and then making gates with an axe.

The regrowth would be constantly managed from the start, always having succession from different age trees.

Sorry I did not get back earlier, pesky kids, had to play Ben 10!

 

 

 

Trees are like people, they all have their unique characters and forms, to suggest that all trees deal with cavitation and pollarding is just not reflecting the nature of trees.

Edited August 3, 2012 by Tony Croft aka hamadryad