Best time to prune?

TC

TC

Participating member
Just wondering what people think is the best time to prune trees?

I generally avoid bud break and abcission(shutting down) on decidous trees.

Although there are some species specific times for pruning(fruit trees and trees that weep) which I follow.

With conifers I prune them all year round.

The reason I ask this is because I believe that due to economic reasons, many tree care companies dont have any general rules on this.

And when the client asks if its 'ok to prune at this time of year' the arborist who knows he may be bending the truth will find a reason for saying yes anyway. No matter what time of year it is!

So they prune trees all year round no matter what the species or time of year.

Am I wrong in thinking this goes on?
What do you think?
 
I think it depends what you are doing. If only dead wood is being removed, it makes little or no difference. If a few low tips are being cut away from the roof, I don't worry much. If I have an overgrown ash, pecan or live oak that needs serious weight reduction or crown lifting, I try to avoid spring. We also have concerns here about oak wilt, and should be avoiding oak prunes from Feb to June. Not everyone abides by this, but it's what the official sources tell us to do. If I'm in an area of known oak wilt activity, I also think twice about pruning oaks in fall. The trees might be less active, but weather conditions tend to be right for fungi to do well, and I don't want to take chances with this disease--nasty stuff.

Having said all that, if I tell a client it's not an ideal time and they say they still want the work done, I usually don't put up much of a fight. Only if it were an extreme case or a marginally healthy/highly desirable tree would I argue the point.

k
 
Best time?

When you're feeling zippy enough.

Keith, Texas presents some conflicting situations involving active wilt. The monthly guidelines reflect trapped and I.D.'d vectors, two studies if I recollect, that can be shot full of holes. Rule of thumb for my clientel: If whenever you drive at night and get a bug smashed on your windshield (which could be January), there's potential transmission going down. Limits to suspected or capable vectors reflect only the isolation studies successful at growing wilt from captured insecti.

We used to fly 5,500ft in a Cessna 150 with a high-volume air sampler breathing onto a paper disk, upon return we isolated spores in the lab. January, May, October all proved positive results. Airborne spores, not much we can do about limiting them by following bug guidelines!
 
It was generaly thought that in this area of the country that pruning would be less stressful to the trees if done later in the fall.

Being in a northern climate the trees would be in a somewhat dormant stage.Oddly it seems though that practice is not adhered to.As it is the spring of the year is the most active for the tree services in this kneck of the woods.

Go figure,the trees are blooming,the ground soggey??Doesn't make an ounch of sense but then niether do a lot of things.
 
Depending on what tree pests or diseases you have in your area, a local co-ocperative extension or univ. can help i.d. these and help set guidelines. here in il. oak wilt is spread by the nididulid beatle (question spelling) so pruning during the growing season is out. (the beatle is drawn in by the fresh cuts and vectors in the fungus) The only exception is hazard issues eg- lg. dead limbs over sidewalks. One problem w/ deadwooding is that all branches don't die back all the way to the branch collar. so when you remove the branch the final/ proper cut is into live symplast (which still produces the pheromone that draws the beatle) What do you think?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Best time?

When you're feeling zippy enough.

Keith, Texas presents some conflicting situations involving active wilt. The monthly guidelines reflect trapped and I.D.'d vectors, two studies if I recollect, that can be shot full of holes. Rule of thumb for my clientel: If whenever you drive at night and get a bug smashed on your windshield (which could be January), there's potential transmission going down. Limits to suspected or capable vectors reflect only the isolation studies successful at growing wilt from captured insecti.

We used to fly 5,500ft in a Cessna 150 with a high-volume air sampler breathing onto a paper disk, upon return we isolated spores in the lab. January, May, October all proved positive results. Airborne spores, not much we can do about limiting them by following bug guidelines!

[/ QUOTE ]
Oh, you want to talk about reality. I was talking about official recommendations.

I suppose you think it's okay to leave proper pruning cuts unpainted, as well? Oh, Reed, you're such a kook!

K
 
I visited a prospective client one day.

They had hacked big branches of a Birch in their garden.

Big stubs left.

The wounds were weeping like a tap left on.

The homeowners had covered the wounds at the end of the stubs with polythene bags and taped them up!

It was one of those really bizarre things you see in treework every now and then.

At least they tried.

I finished the pruning properly.
 
I had a client that used a honeybee smoker on pruning cuts - his logic wasn't "lulling the possible insect vectors into not landing on an infection court", as I suspected (nothing much suprizes me anymore)...but he was trying to "cure" the sapwood like beef jerky.

I noted that particular pecularity into my "homeowner wisdom" log, which is in my briefcase next to my Texas Forest Service guidelines on disease management.

Keep in mind Keith, that out here on the Plateau where men like sheep a little too much, oakwilt is still called "Dat [censored] decline bullchit" dats (that is) from too many gottamn go-atts (goats).
 
Oh yeah, sorry...I don't paint wounds on oaks. I've logged every Quercus prune in the last fifteen years, only two sites have become infected and the first trees to succumb were 20 meters from the two I trimmed.

I do, however, sterilize religiously.
 
A sad removal I had to do was after a friend who owns a tree service and for some time I might add pruned a very large american elm in june/july elevating some large limbs over the house. He had taken me by the tree a year later and the poor tree was stone dead. No doubt that Dutch Elm Disease had set in and wiped out an outerwise thriving elm before pruning. He had no idea what he had did.
frown.gif
 
Now on those I would seal silly, but I haven't done an elm (except some local Siberian and what's called 'cedar elm') in over 25 years (moved way south). No DED on the Edwards Plateau.

Withoaks though, from my individual experience, here in the center of the most destructive disease histories, I stand by the above. Metro, never go there anymore. I'm rural but still...
 
What is your technique for sterilization? Jar, bucket, rag, spray bottle of Lysol? I always mean to sterilize equipment but have never actually workded with anyone that did so I have not made it a habit.
 
In Harris, Clark and Matheny´s book "Arboriculture" the practice to civer wounds with plastic sheets is described as one of the methods of wound sealing that actually has shown some benefit.
"Mc Dougall and Blanchette (1991) covered wounds of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), red maple (Acer rubrum) and paper birch (Betula papyrifera) with polyethylene plastic sheeting. Such treatment reduced dieback along margins and promoted callus growthon maple and aspen but not birch. They attributed the positive effects of treatment to reduced desiccation of wound margins, retaining ethylene near the wound, and providing thermal protection"

Anybody heard of or had any experience with this treatment?
Svein
 
Can you imagine how expensive tree care would be if all the arborists were required to fit pruning into the two "perfect" time of year to prune mentioned in Dr. Shigo's tree biology book?

Right after leaves fall, and right after the leaves appear.

Instead of $1000 to prune a big oak tree - make that $10,000.

And tree services would have to come to the property for each species of tree, since the leaves don't appear or fall at the same time.

At least Dr. Shigo added on the next page or two that pruning was okay throughout the year.

I prune all year long with moderate or light pruning.
 
In answer to Treebing's question, I have two sets of tools, including ropes. One for prunes in general and one for disease. I still however, disassemble the clutch covers, use compressed air and then part's cleaner with brushing in a bench-top set-up with pump and a two gallon basin...between jobs.

Disease here includes hypoxylon and also am treating declining oaks (not oak wilt) as suspected S.O.D. I'm loath to interact with the recommendations of the Extension Service until such a time they incorporate more appropriate and sound practices regarding wilt management, and strongly urge homeowners to be skeptical times ten.
 
After reading a few different reports about sterilization, correct me if I am wrong, I kept running into using 70% isopropyl or a solution of bleach and water (I think 10%?). I choose to use the alcohol for ease of use, avalibility, and the lack of damage to my equipment.

I use a spray bottle and spray my tools between each tree, or cut on deasised trees that are being pruned such as apples with fire blight or elm with elm slime flux.

it was tedious at first but now it seems strange without it.
 
Sounds like you're conditioned to practice it now, so I'd recommend you just continue. Also might make use of your sterilizing habits when you advertise.

After cultivating wilt here from growth media for several hundred samples through the years, I do know that alcohol will kill the fruiting mycelia and it's spores instantly. So will gasoline, lysol, and WD40.
 
I think as long as you are taking dead wood out and doing some lifting or reductions that are not to severe anytime. If it involves some serious cutting i would wait till the well after leaf break. Or best to follow a ID pruning guide line for the seasons to prune when in doudt.
 
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