Ontario ISA conference

I like your courage and where you are headed. Smaller cuts are better and you 1/2 way there. Try stem tracing can't get any smaller than that. Sensitive reduction on certain sps of tree does nothing equivalent to cutting grass and is imho unnatural.
Seat belting a tree is smart and agree with and do this often to avoid major redn in low vigor trees.
I have tons of trees using these techniques if you need for research.
Looking forward to these discussions
 
Thanks for the feedback Ropesheild. Glad to hear the strap is in other pros toolboxes. We'll have to start some photo posts. I'll reply in specific on a new thread.
Guy, at the ISAO I picked up the new ISA Glossary of Arboricultural Terms. You probably know already but I noticed it has the term 'retrenchment' as my old edition does not. The point is that that is good progress. Retrenchment if I remember, was defined as pruning trees smaller, particularly old trees in order to mimic the natural retrenchment process or to reduce risk. It was a short definition and I could be way off with it. I should've bought it but I picked up Shigo's A New Tree Biology instead. I haven't read him nearly enough.
The TRAQ program came up. I want to take that as well. Although risk can never be measured to a precise measurement, and with any model, different numbers will come out of different people as we are mostly looking at subjective things. Let's say there's a target, it has a ten % chance of getting hit in the next five years and a thirty percent chance in the next ten as decay progresses. These numbers are a guideline but what if someone else uses the same model and these percentages double? An educated guess is good. An experienced guess is better. The best I guess is an educated, experienced guess.




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Red I didn't make it to the phc talk I was leaning on health and safety this year.
What I have heard from some of the other people that I talked to is Linda had some good talks, but she spent time discrediting ideas but gave few to no alternative ideas. So its dandy to say things are you don't agree with but then you should give an alternative, like you and pruning. That was the biggest criticism I think I heard.
 
Redtree said:
...we need to search for general answers less and figure out the scales and proportions that exist in tree care more. Such as, the more decay present, the heavier the reduction app. ...And it's amazing how strong the snow Fort is even when we dig it out and it's hollow:)
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Ryan, your post shows our challenge in managing trees knowledgeably. Hollow trees at Biomechanics Week 2010--planetrees, and 2013--red maple tested much STRONGER than 'defect-free' trees. As with that 90%+ backyard boxelder we did, heavy reduction with big cuts would be overkill.
E. Gilman; "We know next to nothing about tree biomechanics." Judging beyond our competence is defective methodology.
The 2015 Glossary added one word that corrected an outrageous overreach: "defects are injuries, growth patterns, decay, or other conditions that MAY reduce the tree's structural strength." Without the MAY, that concept was inflated. O and good move buying the old but good Shigo book (start with page 458); the new Glossary is free online. ;)

All we are saying: Give trees a chance!
 
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Thanks Guy
Good eye. The hollow snow Fort thing was for you especially:)
I should mention as a kid I was dug out a collapsed one once.
I was reducing in the wrong place
So reiterated at the conference that we are all managers of risk.
My phone is catching snowflakes but I walked under a tree now I have an acceptable level of water damage risk. Only small wet dots.
I'm also reducing risk to trees and kids right now.
Last week I did most of the work so the cost of managing ahead of time paid off.
We are out tobogganing and there are trees and whips everywhere.
I put piles of snow in front of the trees. There is a scale here like in tree pruning doses.
I piled big walls in front of larger trunks. Mostly for child care. (Spec: 2'-3' thick)
I piled small piles in front of whips mostly for tree care.
Gotta go manage now. Snow to the face issue.




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guymayor said:
Well Ryan that's quite a review! You point out a lot of areas that boil down to "It depends..." and the need for us all to leave 'rules of thumb' behind before they get rigidified into myths. Shigo talked about this a lot.

I think you meant "causal vs. correlative", the need to avoid jumping to conclusions based on what might be coincidence.

Your pruning frequency approach comes in large part from working with poplars and maples vs. slower growing species. Still it aligns with work done with Q robur in N Europe. Your theories and your math will get refined as you learn from and interact with others who are on the same path.

PHC products and teas are all about freshness imo; good point that Nobody understands the nitty-gritty in microbiology. Linda, and some researchers, spend waaayyy too much time dissing compost tea imo.

Re putting seatbelts, or in my case old climbing ropes, as support material---it's a whole lot better than doing nothing, or heavy reductions. There's a strong anti-cabling bias in the UK and elsewhere that results in huge crown losses to improve stability. Yes with steel it's taut vs. tight--the FL champ live oak and the OH champ red oak have both recently had Catastrophic limb loss that was correlated with, and probably caused by, excessive and rigid steel systems.

Anyway keep on truckin! You're right that ON puts on a great show; hope to see you there again, soon!
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'boil down to "It depends..." and the need for us all to leave 'rules of thumb' behind before they get rigidified into myths'

So I understand that each tree is it's own set of circumstances. But if we don't have our 'rules of thumb' how do we train our new base?

I started studying trees 10 years ago and I think I'm somewhere just above mediocre, and I try to continually put an effort in to it. So where does that leave the new apprentices under me and my tutelage? I understand learning never stops and I've formed my own opinions along the way but how do we teach this and pass it along?
 
Kevin to be more accurate I should have said 'boil down to "It depends..." and the need for us all to understand there are always exceptions to 'rules of thumb', and get beyond those rules when they are in danger of being rigidified into myths (aka overgeneralisations, oversimplifications, overextrapolations)'

orsomethinglikethat

Ryan good point we are tree risk Managers; we must assume some liability from our work.
O and have fun; our 1 snow of the year has mostly melted in today's rain. :(
 
guymayor said:
Kevin to be more accurate I should have said 'boil down to "It depends..." and the need for us all to understand there are always exceptions to 'rules of thumb', and get beyond those rules when they are in danger of being rigidified into myths (aka overgeneralisations, oversimplifications, overextrapolations)'

orsomethinglikethat

Ryan good point we are tree risk Managers; we must assume some liability from our work.
O and have fun; our 1 snow of the year has mostly melted in today's rain. :(
Click to expand...
Lol, guy come on up I have lots of snow I'll give you for nothing, help yourself take lots.

Your other point is good to.
 
Thanks Guy
Good to know the glossary is free online. And thanks Kevin for the feedback. I'm slowly getting better at receiving criticism, but at first on treebuzz I was taking it too seriously. Criticism is progress and simply the honest reaction from another person. And like I said, I knew i said some uncontemporary things. I got that term from previous feedback:) For those who saw my talk I hope I balanced criticism with solutions. I do know I could have done more examples of practicle application and more precise examples of HOW to apply reduction via thinning and HOW to apply heavy dose reduction both with several cuts 1"- 3", and not just cuts in the 1/2 to 1 inch range that might be thought of as similar to cutting grass. Kevin, I do find it very difficult to communicate this practice and the variables in different circumstances. Without being in the tree, it is hard to explain. Even with photos, you don't get the feel.
Any way, I will try to post some solution in certain circumstances with photos in the other thread I started. I am working hard to communicate these theories I have which simply come from the trees I prune, their reactions and my thoughts on where I went wrong.
Every time I prune a tree I question what I did wrong and what I could have done differently. Every time I see something. My curiosity has largely lead me to this point. And I haven't really pruned a tree wrong or right. Just better and worse. But always a step forward. And every time I look up afterwards I see where I might have made that a bigger step forward.

Thanks and please check out the thread 'reducing trees is unnatural?' I think my post was more solution than problem.
And gimme shit:)

I think I know where people sit. Slightly to significantly larger cuts and fewer. But quite a few people agreed or at least liked some points I made. Maybe I'm wrong and I do realise a lot of people do make cuts in small medium range like I do.
 
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