paradise

Hmm, so it's meant to be live mass? Does anyone have any scientific sources btw? I've seen the 30% figure used so much and not sure where it comes from - which is one reason I'm not sure what it means. Is it Shigo? If it is live mass, does it really make no difference at all to the tree whether most of the mass is removed as leaf area or more of it is removed as wood? What about winter/summer differences on deciduous trees? And how do you weigh leaves compared to wood? Damn, this is even more complicated than I thought.

I don't know if it seems like I'm splitting hairs, but it's one of the most widely quoted figures - no more than 30% for a healthy reduction - and I always took it to mean leaf area, but I see people reducing the height and width of the canopy by 30% (option b) and calling it a 30% reduction and I suddenly doubted that everyone is meaning the same thing when they talk about reduction percentages. I reckon a 30% reduction using option (b) often results in, say, a 50% or more reduction in leaf area, because of the distribution of leaves within the tree (more on the ends of branches). Is this ok in terms of the tree's health?

You mean a reduction in the size of the canopy by 30%? Are you measuring that by profile, as in (b), or by volume of canopy? Thinking about it, they wouldn't be the same. Volume of canopy should maybe have been the © option.

So here's a question for a Monday afternoon when I have no work on. Is a 30% reduction: (a) The removal of 30% of the leaf area (b) The removal of branches to reduce the profile by 30% (more or less cutting branches back to two thirds their previous length) © Something else.

I like it. It's a bit like having a totem pole by the gateway. And a good awareness-raising tool too of course.

You should be able to defend yourself and your family, and the law allows you to do that. As for property, that is also just stuff, and I see human life - even the life of a thief - as a lot more important. Honestly, if I met a thief in my home in the process of taking stuff, I'd ask him to leave, being careful not to threaten him in a way that could lead to violence, and once he'd gone I'd call the police. I think this is a civilised way to do things. I also think that it is a lot safer for me, in that a burglar who knew he could be legally assaulted would probably react in a very different way and probably try to strike first. I'm happy with the law as it is.

I'm not saying, btw, that the law always gets things right. Sometimes the sentences may be too light, because the guy had a good lawyer or whatever. But what people are proposing here isn't a solution to that problem, it's a completely different legal system which would create a very different society - one that I wouldn't want to live in any more than I'd want to live in Saudi Arabia.

Wow, the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade are all out on this thread. I can see this isn't going to be popular, but I don't agree with the attitudes here. Sorry, but it's just stuff. Sure, you maybe worked hard for that stuff and are fond of it and stroke it before you put it to bed at night, but it's still just stuff. I don't think it's worth inflicting physical harm on anyone for the sake of stuff. There are reasons we don't let victims of crimes decide the punishment in this country. I've bet you've all speeded. Two to three thousand people are killed every year on the roads, and thousands of people maimed and disabled. What if we let them and their grieving relatives decide the punishment for speeding? You'd probably get a custodial sentence for doing 60 in a 40mph zone. Thankfully we don't allow people who've just been victimised to set the punishments in this country (I'm sure it's done in some tribal cultures still) because what they do is come up with something completely disproportionate to the crime. Even if you believe in the philosophy of 'an eye for an eye' then taking stuff should just be punished with taking stuff, not with physical punishment. But a guy called Jesus disagreed with the harshness of 'an eye for an eye' about two thousand years ago. I'm not religious, but I think he had some good ideas sometimes, and I for one am glad that our society is more based on Christian ideas than Sharia law. Also, I bet at least half of you have fiddled your tax sometimes, probably to the tune of more than the value of a chainsaw. That's stealing too. Should we imprison people for a few grand's worth of tax evasion? I don't think so because I think it would be disproportionate - but we should be consistent y'know...

Yes, and I appreciate the fact that you experiment and put info up here, but I'm still not sure I see the logic here. There's still a big difference between doing lots of small fractures over the tree and doing one or two big fractures. I don't see how the former can be said to be mimicking nature, and the ecological and tree health results of it would be different from a few big fractures, no?

I happened to pass this tree the other day. It looked a bit hedge-trimmed to my eye, though it has to be said the non-arb I was with didn't notice anything amiss. I'm all for fracture pruning but when I saw this thread I didn't see the logic of doing an even haircut all over, and seeing the tree confirmed what I thought. If you want to mimic a really natural look and the habitats of fractures then I reckon it makes more sense to do it properly and rip great lumps out with a winch. If you want to reduce the sail area then I'd just do it the normal way - and then rip a few lumps out if I fancied doing it. This combination sail area reduction and fracture pruning is not in any way 'natural', and I'm not convinced it will create great habitat because big break-outs seem better for that.

I find Rayner's ideas very interesting but he really undermines it by slipping from scientific language into what I call hippy language. The two languages may both have their place, but mixing them together gives a bogus aura of scientific authority to wishy-washy thinking about the 'direction' of humanity and so on. I wish he'd just develop his scientific theories as science and keep the hippy stuff out of it. As it happens I may agree with him that we need to change the way we think in politics as well as in science. I just don't think that he should mix the two together as though they support each other - it just looks like rhetorical sleight of hand to me. I want his scientific thinking to stand on its own two feet.

hamadryad I don't think you're the first to suggest that decay may have beneficial effects on a tree - I've heard in proposed in terms of removing wood so that the tree no longer has to expend energy to support/protect it. I can't for the life of me remember who suggested it though. It sounds like the kind of thing Alan Rayner might say, though I'm not sure it was him. As for re-jigging the theory of evolution, I think you need to know the current theory (which isn't purely darwinistic) very well before you suggest changes to it. Also, you need to read around it too, because things you are suggesting may have been proposed in the past and been dismissed because the science didn't match up. As a quick aside, I think Dawkins chose a terrible, inappropriate term when he referred to the 'selfish gene'. 'Selfish' is a moral term that we attach to human behaviour, and genes do not have moral behaviour, any more than yeast has moral behaviour. If you read his book this is obvious, but Dawkins is a bit too much of a scientist sometimes and didn't see that plenty of people either wouldn't read it or wouldn't understand it and would draw incorrect implications from the term 'selfish'. 'Self-optimising genes' would have been better (if less catchy) but even that is not correct because it appears to attribute intentions to genes, and of course genes don't have intentions any more than they have morals. The apparent self-optimisation is a product of reproductive processes that are, at their basic level, simply chemical reactions. Sorry, that's a rant I've done a few times recently and may not be directly related to the thread. I just get frustrated that so many people attribute moral behaviours to genes. It's outright nonsense.

Okay, so you're putting forward a theory that what we generally call 'pathogenic' fungi can extend the life of a tree? If so, it's an interesting hypothesis, but I have a scientific mind - I'd want to see the data. I suppose what we'd need to see would be studies of the fungal associations (and their properties) in trees that have lived to extraordinary old age, versus maybe trees of more 'normal' age or perhaps trees that have died recently of 'old age'. Perhaps there is already data out there about this? It could be difficult to separate out other environmental factors though.

But seriously, as far as I know Shigo never said you shouldn't pollard properly. I can't link to his actual books but I did a quick google and here is someone's summary of what he said: Untitled Document He just distinguished between good pollarding and bad pollarding. If you are arguing that he got that dividing line wrong, go ahead, but it's not true to say he didn't like pollarding at all.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, why should the yanks pollard? As far as I know it's not traditional practice there - not sure the native americans did it did they? We do it these days to preserve traditions and ecosystems - if that tradition doesn't exist in the US perhaps they shouldn't be do it. This logic is, admittedly, different from an irrational prejudice against pollarding, but the end result is the same.

MattyF, did Shigo turn people against pollarding though? I thought he simply said that pollarding is properly done on a regular cycle and cut back to the same point, and therefore that chopping the ends/tops off branches whenever we feel like it does not constitute pollarding and should be avoided.

I'm not sure it's true to say trees have self-destruct genetics is it? It's more true of animals than trees. Trees that die of 'old age' die because the fundamental growth pattern of a tree (adding a new cone of wood every year) cannot continue forever. As for the tree-fungi relationship, it is well understood that certain fungi are beneficial to the tree, and Alan Rayner has argued that we shouldn't see even 'parasitic' fungi as invading pathogens. Are you saying something besides this? I'd like to understand what you're saying, because it sounds interesting, but couldn't you just, y'know, say it?

hamadryad, if I understand you correctly, you're saying we've become very conservative in our pruning practices because we are too worried about death and decay. But isn't this because we now prune for different purposes? Rather than pruning for useful end products (and allowing for wastage) we now mostly prune for amenity and safety. I wish we could prune for useful end products myself - I think it would make arboriculture much more interesting - but it isn't economically viable, and also too many of the trees we work on are in very built-up areas so the safety aspect can't be ignored. This isn't to say you aren't right about old-style pollarding being much more 'brutal' than we give it credit for - though I'd be interested in some more concrete evidence - but this would still only be suitable in certain (mostly rural) situations, don't you think?

Won't it partly depend on how much stored energy the tree has? I would think if it had a lot of energy reserves it could maintain the roots for a while (with some loss of disposable fine roots) and try to recover its leaf area. If it was low on reserves it would not be able to recover leaf area so quickly and would not be able to support the roots while in recovery, so the roots would likely die back a bit. Seems reasonable anyway, even if I just made it up

Aha, I'm with you. Thanks for explaining to a slow person

Really interesting thread thanks monkeyd. Could you explain pruning 'dependant on terminal bud scar length'? I'm not sure what that means.

I have Felco secs, Wolf Garten bypass loppers (extendable), and silky saws (a short one and a long one). I was thinking of getting the longest Sugoi to complete my set and am very interested to hear you can sharpen them - I thought none of the silkys could be sharpened because the chrome tips wear off. Does anyone have a link to more info on how to sharpen it?

Yeah, seems a real shame to fell them just because one fell down. Not really a rational response, but I suppose it is asking too much to expect people to be rational

I've used the throw bag on the end of the rope a few times now and find it waaaay better than the bundle I was taught to use. I'll likely always take a throw bag up big trees from now on. Thanks for your advice

oh yeah, one of them on the spliced end of the rope should do nicely - cheers I happen to live 15 minutes from FR Jones