Summer limb/branch drop

[Matthew Arnold]

My colleagues and i have been discussing the recent limb drops on our sites and have come up with a theory as to why we are seeing more this summer than we had last the past two summers.

 

Our theory is because our spring was later than usual the trees are growing at stunted rate and producing lots of leaves and lots of fruit/mast/etc to make up for last years very poor summer. But because they have grown so quickly, the longer and weaker limbs can't hold the sudden weight gain where in the past the growth has been steady so they could adapt the fibres to hold the weight. We have also noticed that most of the limb drops occur during or just after rain where the weight of the leaves effectively treble in weight. We have also checked for any rot in the breaks and found nothing in our failures.

 

Could we be onto something?

 

We had a failure last night/early hours caused by the rain on a perfectly healthy hyper extended limb. I noticed two days ago it was sat in a lower branch of the same limb and told my colleagues about it. It hadn't failed but it was contorted/twisted as there was a two inch branch hooked into a fork, keeping it up. Please note, the lack of rot and and the fibres at the failure point.

 

Good news about the beech. It isn't signed off for the chop but 3 other trees on a town centre site are for the 99% reduction this winter due to the failures this summer. The Beech may have its lower branches reduced a bit and the crown dead wooded.

 

Its a shame about the 3 town centre trees but they are due to be re-coppiced anyway.

[Ty Korrigan]

Hello,

I've just come in from an emergency branch removal in the grounds of a chateau in Basse Normandy who is having an open gardens this weekend.

A HUGE oak standing alone in pastureland, quite the biggest tree in terms of mass I have ever climbed.

I had a scan around the other limbs and found many had signs of torsion and buckling. Most of the lower limbs where 'hyper extended'.

The limb that fell and got hung up had been fractured internally near the butt some time in the past but the bark had 'occluded..?' over the wound. Never the less no real decay was present although moisture and beasties where.

One thing about this oak was the hardness of the wood which was almost all heartwood.

It just laughed my efforts to clean up the wound and my groundy was snarling at my sharpening skills and even changed chains to no avail.

The wood near the butt when cut produced dust instead of chips.

The wood further along the branch proved no problem for the saws.

I will meet again with the 'Countess' owner of the chateau to chat about the steps we may take to reduce the risk of future breakouts but I fear they are short of cash and also afraid of touching such a remarkable specimen.

Whilst they may be happy for me to remove and make good damage it is quiet another prospect to let some-one loose who may in their eyes further damage the trees character. I would need to have a proven history working for Parisian parks to satisfy my ladyship...

[David Humphries]

Any shots Ty?

 

What was the weather like when the limb failed?

 

 

cheers

 

David

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Hello,

I've just come in from an emergency branch removal in the grounds of a chateau in Basse Normandy who is having an open gardens this weekend.

A HUGE oak standing alone in pastureland, quite the biggest tree in terms of mass I have ever climbed.

I had a scan around the other limbs and found many had signs of torsion and buckling. Most of the lower limbs where 'hyper extended'.

The limb that fell and got hung up had been fractured internally near the butt some time in the past but the bark had 'occluded..?' over the wound. Never the less no real decay was present although moisture and beasties where.

One thing about this oak was the hardness of the wood which was almost all heartwood.

It just laughed my efforts to clean up the wound and my groundy was snarling at my sharpening skills and even changed chains to no avail.

The wood near the butt when cut produced dust instead of chips.

The wood further along the branch proved no problem for the saws.

I will meet again with the 'Countess' owner of the chateau to chat about the steps we may take to reduce the risk of future breakouts but I fear they are short of cash and also afraid of touching such a remarkable specimen.

Whilst they may be happy for me to remove and make good damage it is quiet another prospect to let some-one loose who may in their eyes further damage the trees character. I would need to have a proven history working for Parisian parks to satisfy my ladyship...

 

Sounds like a busmans holiday!

 

sort of tree i get my kicks on

[Ty Korrigan]

Sorry, no shots, it didn't cross my mind until later as I had forgot about this thread.

I'll try harder next time...

The limb came down during a heavy thunderstorm and violent gusts.

Regards

[David Humphries]

I understand Jeremy Barrell will release a paper on SBD later on this year.

(imagine it will coincide with this years AA conference)

 

Looks to be focussing on frequency of the phenomenom.

 

& hopefully tackling public engagement. and how they see their own part in tree risk awareness

 

Should promote healthy debate on practices of tree risk management.

 

.

[woodyguy]

"Our theory is because our spring was later than usual the trees are growing at stunted rate and producing lots of leaves and lots of fruit/mast/etc to make up for last years very poor summer" - The problem with this is that much SBD happens in oak which have all their growth within the bud, so amount of growth is pre-determined by the previous summer and not conditions during this one. Or have I not understood the argument?

[Gary Prentice]

I understand Jeremy Barrell will release a paper on SBD later on this year.

(imagine it will coincide with this years AA conference)

 

Looks to be focussing on frequency of the phenomenom.

 

& hopefully tackling public engagement. and how they see their own part in tree risk awareness

 

Should promote healthy debate on practices of tree risk management.

 

.

 

Personally I think the awareness needs to be within the industry. Listening to Mattheck this year - with his template of ideal canopy shape thingy (the one that Hama posted a pic of) and reading some of the literature from the States and Germany on biomechanics, has certainly made me more aware.

 

Ideally they'd be a database for the UK, similar to the American one, where species and frequency of failures were recorded. I'm just not sure how much the message is getting out there.

[David Humphries]

........Ideally they'd be a database for the UK, similar to the American one, where species and frequency of failures recorded.......

 

Some of us have been doing this for a good while in the UK.

We have 7 years worth.

 

Never enough people recording of course, but there is a data set out there for UK tree failures.

 

We signed up to the International Tree Failure Database, but it didn't really get going over here.

 

 

.

[Gary Prentice]

Some of us have been doing this for a good while in the UK.

We have 7 years worth.

 

Never enough people recording of course, but there is a data set out there for UK tree failures.

 

We signed up to the International Tree Failure Database, but it didn't really get going over here.

 

 

.

 

Sorry David, I was unaware and it's the first I've heard of it. With the research I'm reading currently regarding wood strength (hollow trees) I would have thought that the more localized the data was the better. Have you a link to the UK data (sorry if it's already been posted, but its a long thread:laugh1:)