damage caused from spikes

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couldnt help but notice how low your post count is btw /forum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

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That's because I'm a slow thinker. Hopefully I'm even a slower poster. /forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif

You have inspired me to collect some spike damage samples with your photos.

Dan
 
just a case of finding em......then once you find gotta rely on the tree coming down!
it would be good to se the difference between tree species though. willow for instance, a year or so on you wouldnt be able to tell it had been spiked, but i wonder what stories lie beneath the bark
 
Fantastic work Steve, Thanks! Might have to borrow 1 or 2 of those...

We take so much care, not to rip cuts; not to form tattered fiber with all of it's exposed surface areas and cavern of catches. For, a tattered cut never seals or heals like a clean cut, nor in near the same amount of time.

The spike wounds are tattered cuts, with high exposed surface area for their size, and many nooks and crannies to catch and allow protected growth to pathogens. But, instead of them being in 1 bad cut that you'd get blasted for; the spike wounds litter all around the tree causing many years of of extra special materials by the trees, as well as imposing extra risks; and many times facing up to catch even more crud than most cuts.

i've seen these things as Steve and others; and have even shown were the obvious damage by the spike wounds outlasts the obvious damage of the correct cuts of moderate size by very much!!

Palm trees, while not having all these risks to their monocot systems; on the other side of the arguement, pretty much don't even try to seal these wounds; so incurr them longer.

If we are there to care for the trees, and spikeless strategies are workable and safe; what buisness would i have spiking them?
 
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No offense, but I get tired of the often repeated Shigo mantra about the word "heal" being inappropriate for trees. Even semantically, most dictionary definitions of heal are something like mend, restore to health or soundness,recover,make sound,etc. Not explicitly or specifically wrong. I understand his trying to get people to understand they respond to injury differently, but just because people use the word "heal" doesn't mean it's wrong.

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Good point!!! /forum/images/graemlins/parry.gif
 
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just a case of finding em......then once you find gotta rely on the tree coming down!
it would be good to se the difference between tree species though. willow for instance, a year or so on you wouldnt be able to tell it had been spiked, but i wonder what stories lie beneath the bark

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Or- you could do like I do and create your own new samples... /forum/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
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top pictures steve.

sure somone could use the argument that "a" spike wound will heal, but mow many wounds does a tree have to sustain before the amount of damage becomes unacceptable?

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Amen. I'd like tree spikers to stab themselves gently 100-200 times with a paring knife and then tell us how they feel the next day.
Those wounds look enormous, even in the relatively large sample of wood. Imagine what the wounds look like in smaller, lateral limbs.
 
It is funny reading the posts in here cause just yesterday in Tree Service Mag. they where discusing the same thing. Some had good things to say and others well, spike it for prunes saves time and they can move on for more money.
 
Thatwas my thoughts to the readings. I maybe new to the climbing up the tree, but my bud who is teaching me never spikes a prune to save time to move on to another job.
 
Spikes don't always save time. I find it more difficult to run around a tree and limb walk with those braces on my feet. I feel like forrest gump. You can't just stand on branch with the rounded steel under your feet its a bit slippery. I could say more but why bother, no one here uses them right? (for prunes)?
 
Great pictures Steve I might swipe some of those for training purposes.
How many of youse guys started in the biz spiking everything 25 or so years ago?
then I met shigo - Damm those lions tailed elms got alot bigger. But we learned. and the trees smiled
 
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Hey Steve,
I was just kidding about the topping out.

I wonder if the whole tree may suffer an ever so slight reduction in vigor due to each spike gouge severing different parts of the tree's vascular system.

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....or maybe the little spike gouges are like vaccinations and aid the tree in building immunity </font> so it can withstand it's eventual topping out/forum/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif

Great research you are doing there!

Dan

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Dan you would be surprised how right you are.

Inonotus is a fungus that infests London plane. The only barrierzone that effectively keeps the fungus from infesting the whole tree is Barrierzone 4. That's the one that is triggered by a wound (there is a complete new and from a comletely different 'material' made barrier produced. This barrier stops the Inonotus from spreading outwards into the newly formed wood.

So...

If you once in a while spike up those planes, you do vaccinate the tree against the spreading of the Inonotus in a brutal but effective way /forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif (this is NOT a joke).
 

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