opinions on mild crack saving / removing limb

[CutHighnLetFly]

i recently bought a house and while do some dead wood pruning on a black oak over my driveway i noticed on lead (roughly 8" in dia.) which has a crack on it bout 5" out from where it starts off the main stem where the limb separates into two branches (its about a foot long) in the middle of the wood. it looks like the crack was a result of snow / ice weight on the tips. i would like to save this lead, and i'm just looking for other people's opinions on what they would do had this been at their own house.
i hope i described this well enough, if not ill get my line up there again soon to take a picture.

i did some weight reduction pruning on it, and im torn between wanting to do some sort of a dynamic support system or if i should do a thru bolt, neither of which i have experience doing yet. removing the limb would destroy the shape of the crown and i think its keepable.

opinions?

 

[AspenArbo]

Pictures would be very helpful.

 

[guymayor]

Pics will show how the tree is responding, which leads to care options.

 

[CutHighnLetFly]

im assuming it happened over the winter because it looks fresh ill get a pic up soon

 

[NickfromWI]

Does the crack run parallel with the grain?

 

[Bucknut]

Slight derail... Thread title reads "opinions on mild crack".
I had to see what this was about. Only mildly disappointed to see that it concerned trees.

I am immature.

Carry on.

 

[jomoco]

Cracks splitting with the grain of the wood can be rodded together sufficiently enough to help prevent further splitting, and thus speed up wound coverage time.

I know this is true for Torrey Pines I've rodded 2 foot long splits back together and cabled to strengthen its weakness that initiated the tear.

With enough weight relief pruning on the split limb?

It can envelope the split naturally and fill it with sap and carry on with no hardware rodding or cabling at all.

Structural branch failures can be surrounded by cambial tissue and corrected in terms of new structural integrity by new growth around an old fracture that's been enveloped this way. This is a natural process that's been happening in trees since before we swang down out of em!

Might be best to relieve lots of lateral weight and go the natural route with follow up pruning every 3 years or so?

Pics should tell the story.


jomoco

 

[CutHighnLetFly]

we'll pause this thread till i get a picture shoulda just got one before asked this. parallel to the grain. i feel like if i do nothing, ill be fetching a big storm damaged limb in future. so if try something and it happens, ill feel like at least i tried and maybe prolonged the inevitable. i dont plan on leaving and the tree's fun to climb so it'll be pruned and monitored

 

[oceans]

It sounds like the limb may have cracked due to a potential imbalance of one side. From your description, a branch union exists within 2' of the parent stem. I would try to balance the limb through pruning.

I can only draw from what I have seen in this type of injury, but most often, cracked branches appear to be the result of rotational forces. Would it be possible for you to "reverse engineer" the damage? What I mean is to observe what force/direction is required to "close" the crack. This way, you may be able to tell where to reduce/remove/etc...

I most often see these cracking injuries in Cedar and Spruce trees. The Spruce trees are sometimes the most dramatic, and found on the lower "arms" of flagging limbs. Heavy storm damage is a perfect time to keep your eyes peeled to learn about how defects can fail. My thought is; The vertical portions of these flagging limbs can exert rotational forces on the horizontal sections, resulting in the shear injury.

I try to bring this balance into most pruning jobs, especially the ones calling for end weight reduction. I feel it's a great time to train stems for long term health.

I hope to see the photo, and further this thread.