Pin Oak Form

Perhaps I can get an opinion about the growth habit of my favorite pin oak.
It's a wonderful and healthy tree, but observe a) multiple leaders -probably formed 30 years ago, and b) the upper branches are adorned with many vertical shoots.

Regarding the shoots - do these need to be thinned or controlled?

Regarding the leaders - will this subject the tree to structural damage one day?

Any other suggestions for keeping this friend healthy? Do I need lightning protection?


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A closeup of the forks would be needed before pruning can be specified.

The sprouts are reiterations, the tree's response to overextension. They are NOT watersprouts. Reduce them to mitigate included bark, mainly.

Mulch and companion plants would not be bad and yes if it's the tallest thing around, a little copper would help.

A closeup of the base would be good too. Nice looking tree!
 
Answer is I don't know. I've lived with it for about 25 years. I'm guessing it was planted in the 1940s, when the house itself was built.

Nice thing is that there has been no competition for light and space so the crown outline is just what a quercus palustris wants to be.
 
Nice tree.

Guy, by "not watersprouts" do you mean that they arose from latent buds with bud traces towards the pith rather than arising de-novo from de-differentiation or callus? I'm not giving you a hard time, I'm just curious what y'all mean with these terms!
 
Kevin, from the definitions I see, watersprouts are slender, sparsely branched near the base or not at all, often internodal, and lacking a flare. Yes this all suggests they did not arise from latent buds.

De-differentiation, like lignified tissue reverting to meristematic? huh? is that like a 50-year old man getting a red convertible and a hot blonde?

Looking at the picture, the reiterations (a common term in botany) seem to arise from nodes, where latent buds reside.
Also yes it may have been whacked early on; look at all the leaders originating from one area.
Not what pin oak structure wants to be. that's why you need a top-down look at those unions before saying much else.
 
Thanks Guy, I think you hit it there, that watersprouts are internodal. Yes, reiteration is a common term. I haven't looked it up lately to see if the sense is restricted to latent buds. I know you are as interested in clear definitions as I am. I don't really have a dog in the fight, but it helps me to know what the inteded meaning may be!
That's about right for de-differentiation, although it may not be that extreme. With respect to sapwood wounds, folks usually mean that ray parenchyma, which are differentiated and not capable of division, do divide into a more-or-less totipotent callus. Oh, "totipotent" means able to mature or differntiate into most any other cell type.
I know you know this, but I'm not trying to be obscure here!
 
re watersprouts, it'd be kind of hard to *prove* the type of tissue at the origin with a postmortem dissection; not sure why that matters.

Yes totipotent is Greek for all-powerful, like stem cells, ok, but why is there an assumption that ray parenchyma cells cannot divide?

Do we Know that they are 'switching back'?
Has it been proven/shown/indicated that they are truly differentiated?

Not sure if all that matters, and the mechanism probably goes much deeper than my understanding of it; but I have seen this stuff act quickly enough to wonder. Case in point:

http://www.thewanderingarborist.com/2014/02/zombie-tree.html
 
Hey guy what companion plants would you recommend with palustris? Or Quercus I'm general?
Do you have any articles related to trees and companion plantin?
Thanks.

Sorry for the derail. Nice looking tree
 
Being one of the prodominant trees in my area...looks to me like it was lions tailed and overally pruned and the "not watersprouts" sprouted up. Any signs of poor prunning cuts?
 
i would pay a consulting arborist in your area to come out and give an evaluation of this tree and recommend management practices to be applied to the specimen. Research and pay well the consultant should cost you at least $100 an hour. Then hire a climber with a lot of knowledge, work experience and love of trees to come and work in the tree with you while you do the work. my $0.02
 
tree looks to be in decent shape. NO need for a consulting arb IMO... You could probably do nothing and the tree would be fine for many years to come. My main concern would be BLS (bacterial leaf scorch). It's very common around here... Maybe not so where you are.. Check it out and get on a preventative maintenance program.

If any pruning were to be done, I'd use a bucket, on frozen or really dry ground or mats... make .5-1.5" reduction cuts, on the branch tips (the outer 1/4 length) of the upper-mid, mid and lower canopy, taking no more than 25% of the leaves from that outer 1/4 tips (no more than 5-7% of the entire tree). NO cuts on the interior other than broken/dead limbs, no cuts on the upright leads, and NO cuts on the lowest limbs that shade the trunk and root zone, especially on the south and west sides. So NO elevation except in cases where the lower limbs are showing signs of sheer cracks or other structural defects, in which case only reduction cuts to remove weight from branch tips as needed, hopefully leaving the lowest portions of the limbs for shade.

The reduction cuts that are made should be used to reduce weight on large heavy limbs. The main purpose for (reduction) pruning this tree is to prevent future loss of large limbs to storm damage, and the secondary purpose would be to allow enough light penetration to the lower limbs to keep them alive.

Before pruning though, I'd be concerned about soil compaction. Some air spading and soil remediation may be in order. Looks like a high traffic area.

Good luck with the tree..


ps... looks like the tree might have been lions tailed. The sprouts are undoubtedly the trees response to some type of improper pruning. For the most part its just better to let them be. Tree needs them whether we understand why or not! No need to even think about thinning them for another 5-10 years.

Gilman said "sprouts are your friend" four or five times at the penn del conference last week.
 
Like Jeff said, get a consulting arborist. Why? You're paying for the assessment and subsequent recommendations which could range from do nothing, a bit of soil work, to something as full blown as what Daniel is talking about. All that without the potential bias of generating work for himself.

With that report in hand then you'll know what the next step really is.

It's all about how much you're willing to spend and whether you trust the arborist to advise you without bias.
 
I bet you've run into CPA too that aren't good.

That is the nature of any profession Daniel. The point wasn't get any consulting arborist but, I didn't think I would need to specify that it would be good consumer practice to obtain references.
 
th, you got a whole lot of confidence in that profession. How does the op check references?
What's needed is not another set of high-dollar eyes from the ground, but a pair in the air.
Mick, until you get a good view of those forks, proper care cannot be specified.

Consultants without direct and recent enough field experience are not often useful ime. Terrestrial consultants tend to pass a lot of gas.

Good arborists, who think they can't or shouldn't sell their opinions independently, sell themselves short.
 

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