Would you call it topping? Redwood

[mdvaden]

Got called for consultation yesterday. For a beautiful 32 meter coast redwood with 15 foot dbh trunk. The neighbor wants it gone, and the folks who own it want to keep it. A storm last December broke out part of a codominant stem from about 3/4 of the way up. About 1/4 meter thick where it peeled off.

 

Now ... the main stem is a codominant leader too, down to about 2 meters high. But it could easily be braced up high.

 

What I'm thinking looking at this tree, is that if the upper break left half of the stem up there a bit too weak, and there is risk to let that piece grow taller, wouldn't removal at the break be the remedy? To avoid a 2000 lb. section spearing into the next door yard, or their yard?

 

That would still leave the undamaged stem un-topped.

 

I've heard the mantra before "never top", but seem to find that topping may have to be an alternative sometimes.

 

Do you folks ever say "never"? Or are you more of the mindset "never say never"?

 

This is maybe the only tree I've seen in 8 months, where topping came to mind as the best option to included safety.

 

Guess this could be called "corrective pruning" but in simple terms, it would be topping.

[MasterBlaster]

Top it.

[RobRainford]

i would say top it too, remove the hazard, cable bracing only admits there is a problem, you are only slowing the failure down.

[Mesterh]

As above.

 

If its that or fell the tree would rather be topped id say.

[mdvaden]

i would say top it too, remove the hazard, cable bracing only admits there is a problem, you are only slowing the failure down.

 

There are two co-dominant things going on. One is the main stems, from head height all the way up.

 

The other is the smaller one, where one of those stems did a "V" up near it's top. That's where it broke.

 

A cabling / bracing if done, would actually be between the two main stems, and well below the topping cut.

 

Since redwood resists decay so well, this tree seemed to be a good candidate for a topping remedy. Because it makes no sense to leave a huge weakened section just sitting up there. It can definitely be cut off a lot cleaner than letting it tear off, that's for sure.

[mdvaden]

Here is a rough idea in a drawing.

 

The falling piece represents what has already broken off.

[mdvaden]

View up trunk from below.

[treequip]

Is it topping or is it remedial pruning to address morphological defects and the immediate target?

 

Given the option of felling, go for the remedial works, you can always fell it at a later date.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

cabling is only going to go against you in court if you failed to reduce the load at the same time. cabling does admit a fault, but reducing the load and cabling is the right way to go from a liability point of view.

 

In the very long term those two stems will just increase thier included region and even force eachother apart, not being familiar with these trees growth and habits.

 

Topping will retain the tree well beyond our life times no doubt, but will also create more included regions higher in the canopy at a later date. Long after were all gone, and most likely the fault will go unkown till, once again, a bit drops out!

 

reduce the top down, cable it and youve done alll you can, for now anyway.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Dont just think of cabling as a means of avoiding a failure, try to also imagine it as a controlled means of letting a failure come down in another direction.