Pruning cuts and big limbs

[QuattroKev]

Posting this to help better myself and improve my technique

 

I still have a lot to learn but my skills are improving fast

 

My question is...

 

I know about making the correct final pruning cuts, I was lifting/laterally reducing a large oak this week. Client wanted more light and to remove risk of damaging a stable below.

 

When it comes to taking off huge lower limbs, I found one or two stubs from previous work. Have these been left because the previous climber was lazy/rubbish and didn't want to lower down and deal with a great big log?

 

Or is it good practice to leave large stubbs with these kind of limbs so not to leave massive open wounds where the final pruning cut wound go? So to reduce gateways for pathogens and aid proper healing ect?

 

On the image attached you can see my finished work. The lower left wound is no doubt a poor job on my part, I when through a nail without realising and only noticed the saw was cutting in a curve when it was too late and I had made a pigs ear of the far too large final cut. Which is what led me to start thinking about this.

[Ian C]

Leaving stubbs is not good but neither is leaving large wounds as the tree won't close that size but you have to do your best with what the customer wants.

[Lee Winger]

The biggest cut I've seen over here had to be over 4' across it was a hideous sight..

[Ian C]

The biggest cut I've seen over here had to be over 4' across it was a hideous sight..

 

Hell I can imagine and a guaranteed pathway for infection. One problem solved another long term one created!

[Roylance1988]

I was dead wooding a willow a few weeks ago and it had a large limb come off the back of the tree from the bowling that had been left as a stub.

We thought it was be better to leave it as it is, than take it back to bark ridge.

Would rather the rot got into the stub than the bowl of the tree.

[Island Lescure]

Old stubs: Remove only what is dead.

New stubs: Provide a springboard (extra food) for fungi to get into the stem. Better to do a proper cut. Removing big limbs is never good. If at all possible reduce the lower limbs to a reduction point farther out rather than to the stem. Ideally, if the branch has been reduced and no longer receives enough light to support itself, it will eventually die by itself at which point you come by and remove the dead matter (again, this is an ideal situation which is not easy to apply). In this situation, the tree will have used reserves (possibly from that branch) and created boundaries which will improve chances of resisting invasion by fungi or other. My 2 Rupees

[treeseer]

Old stubs: Remove only what is dead.

New stubs: Provide a springboard (extra food) for fungi to get into the stem. Better to do a proper cut. Removing big limbs is never good. If at all possible reduce the lower limbs to a reduction point farther out rather than to the stem. Ideally, if the branch has been reduced and no longer receives enough light to support itself, it will eventually die by itself at which point you come by and remove the dead matter (again, this is an ideal situation which is not easy to apply). In this situation, the tree will have used reserves (possibly from that branch) and created boundaries which will improve chances of resisting invasion by fungi or other. My 2 Rupees

 

O no more like 200!

[Stephen Blair]

A big fracture prune would be best I reckon if you could get away with it.

[Eddy_t]

On mature oaks, it's better to leave a stub to give the tree chance to compartmentalise the larger wound.

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

BS3998 (p.26) advocates the same in terms of avoiding removal of large branches on mature trees instead "branch shortening" is suggested.

 

Cheers..

Paul