I’ve been dealing with Oak Wilt. Here’s the standards that we’ve developed that are also followed by two local townships.
Remove immediately upon a positive sample. Time of year doesn’t matter. The longer these trees stand the more likely the disease will spread. There is no cure or treatment...
I almost always climb SRT. I almost always use a friction saver for a canopy anchor and jam the small ring with a butterfly with a binder that captures the loop and the retrieval side of the rope. I have not heard of any arguments against the use of jams. My bridges are also rope bridges with...
Cost is all dependent on time. How many man hours does it take? Multiply that by a cost per man hour. Figure 3 guys for two days at $100 per man hour… $4,800.
Don’t overthink it.
I would cut all bamboo and ground level. That’s actually how you “prune” it. It’s probably the worst kind of work tho. Chipping bamboo is on top of the list of things tree guys hate to do.
We use Sonetics. They are expensive. However, I would say the noise canceling is the best I’ve seen. For us that’s a must. We always have someone using a piece of equipment, so it’s huge. The range is ok. You have to have a “base station” that each headset connects to, and you really need to...
I just use a ring-n-ring friction saver. Mine is 28” 10mm armorpruss with a sewn eye on each end with aluminum ring. I use it almost every climb and it works really well. The soft 8 is two rings but the corsage between them is short. Climb line goes up from climber through big ring, around...
I almost always climb SRT these days. And I almost always tie off with a running bowline (Yosemite finish) from the ground. When I get to the top, I’ll switch to a friction saver. I prefer having the option to hit whatever redirects I want and still be able to pull my rope out. Seems to work...
I also use cow hitches for crane picks. Typically it’s used with a half hitch at rigging point then goes to a cow hitch with two half hitches to back it up. I use the slings from Wes spur that are made from Amsteel. Although I don’t think the construction of the rope would make a difference. I...
Here’s one I did last summer after we thought we saw streaking. It ended up coming back negative for DED and positive for Elm Yellows. Just cut it down last month. Real shame too... 54” dbh. Was a beautiful tree. It was about 75% dead when we cut it.
Nice tree. I love how thick they get. So the thing about macro is the volume. I forget the actual rate. But you end up putting gallons of solution in. It’s pretty simple other than that. No plugs for the injection sites. The Ts go right into the holes. And then the whole system is actually...
Did you have confirmed DED? Or is this preventative?
I have only done or heard of macro for DED. We use it as a therapeutic when DED is found. We do use it on one tree in particular that can’t be sprayed. The other Elms we have are treated with a foliage spray to kill the beetles twice a...
I think your best bet is to cut as you’re saying right now to clean the break and leave a long stub. Be sure to spray the cut with a pruning sealer. Oak Wilt is a fungal disease that the insects bring to the tree similar to DED the trees vascular system clogs itself up to protect itself, instead...