real tree work

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Daniel said:
Is that really too much to ask?
For one shred of scientific research that supports your recommendations...
You must be an expert if they recruited you to write service manuals...
so then if there is no science to support your recommendations, you must have some other means to access this knowledge...
perhaps personal experience, logic, or just repeating what you had been told...

do you care to share any of that with us Tom?
explain the "why" of these:
1) any advantage to "mating the cracked surfaces"
2) any advantage to crisscrossing thru rods
3) any advantage to installing rod(s) above the union

One could only hope that an expert that has written manuals on the subject would have a better explanation than..." it's just my way of doing things"...

perhaps you could start by explaining the actual purpose of the thru rods. What are they intended to do? and how is that better achieved by your recommendations...

Is that a conversation worth having? Or should we stick to cat rescues on this thread?

This isn't intended to be directed at you in a pejorative way Tom. It's more a critique of the entire industry, especially those that teach and cling to orthodoxies without understanding the "why". The fact that there is a gross lack of science to support industry standards is not confined to the subject of cabling and bracing. Many industry practices are based on false assumptions and a long history of "stuck in the box" thinking.
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Pick up your Isa study manual and look at the further reading whenever you get around to recertification.. or sued for false advertising
 
Dr. Shigo would have themes going through his presentations. At times during my career I'd hear him speak 4-5 times a year.

One of those themes was 'wobble'. Some, of a certain age, spun fighting tops. In some spins the top ran true and straight. Other times a little wobble would occur. Some of those threw the top off and it dumped. What was really cool was to see a top wobble...then recover...and spin in to kill the other top. This didn't happen very often. Most of the times wobble was followed by tipping over

There are many examples of wobble around us every day.
 
the following paragraph from the USFS manual shows a near-complete lack of understanding and promotes inferior practices.

If weight reduction is determined to be necessary, a slight crown reduction by using proper thinning cuts in the crown is the safest course of action. The possible harm from over-pruning a tree to remove a significant amount of weight must also be recognized. Most trees will need only routine pruning to remove dead limbs and other material in accordance with accepted pruning standards.

thinning cuts are not going to do much good to reduce the force on bad crotches in heavy leaning tops... more bang for your buck by taking weight off the high and reaching tips with reduction cuts not on the main stem...

pruning is an integral part of remediating bad crotches. removing A significant amount of weight before cabling is usually a good prescription for the side that will likely peel off in a storm. Weight does not have to be removed equally throughout the entire canopy, but should be focussed on where it will have the most impact on force while doing the least amount of damage to the tree... that's not going to be using target cuts to remove limbs lower on the trunk.
 
It reads clearly to me. Goal is reduction, method is thinning. Pretty simple. The wording plainly states for the arborist to make their pruning choices by reducing the end weight option over taking the smaller secondary lateral.
Check out the new ansi standards, for the most part it’s well done.
Also have a good chat with @Matt Follett his work has shown thinning the tips is just about as effective as whack a mole reduction.
Keep reading!
 
maybe it's a terminology thing.. thinning as commonly practiced refers to thinning the interior of a tree... this is distinct from reducing weight on branch tips with reduction cuts to laterals or nodes.

I don't have my dictionary handy and found this definition online: THINNING - The removal of branches where they arise in order to let in light, reduce wind resistance, remove unwanted branches, or to retain a tree's natural shape.

that is not the way I reduce weight to reduce the forces on bad crotches.... I go to the most leveraged limb tips and reduce them significantly. That is highky misleading

then the USFS manual states that Most trees will need only routine pruning to remove dead limbs and other material in accordance with accepted pruning standards. Saying that is in a section on cabling is highly misleading. Pruning is an integral part of cabling and the two practices are used to complement each other in remediating bad crotches on co-doms....

Then the USCF manual fails to mention anything about cable height .. and much more...
 
Potatoes and tomatoes

The publication was released in 2003 practices and terminology has changed since then.

The goal is to reduce loads. That's the end point. How that load reduction comes about is another topic


@Daniel in polite and genuine discussion its expected that questions are answered before being ignored and dodged. Please go back and answer the questions that you were asked.

In the article there is a picture of the HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalger. After touring it and other large, wooden, sailing ships I got a much better idea of how to deisgn support systems. If you want engineering specs for tree support systems go back and chat with the people who built and maintained those ships. On one tour of a wooden ship I saw how the lower portions of the mainmasts were assembled from several trunks using various means. After the tour I spent time talking to the docent/tour guide about this. One thing that was done was to use through bolts...crossed...to support the pieces. Ahhhh...

Go look at the historical ships at the Philly shipyard, Mystic Seaport would be a fun weekend, the frigates USN Consititution [Boston] and USN Constellation [Baltimore] are there too.

Now...those questions that people asked you....???
 
Tom Dunlap said:
Now...those questions that people asked you....??? @Daniel in polite and genuine discussion its expected
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You want to lecture me about polite conversations on this forum... That's ridiculous...

It's supposed to be a free country. I'll do what pleases me thank you...

You ask where did I get post 12 from?
then say I didn't read the USFS manual you linked...


WHEN IN FACT: post 12 is copied and pasted from the USFS manual with some time spent on formatting
 
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Mick Dempsey said:
It is a terminology thing.
There are two different practices being talked about.
Internal thinning and thinning the crown using drop crotch techniques to reduce weight.
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Using drop crotching to reduce weight is tip or branch reduction. How did they ever decide to call that thinning, which has for decades referred to stripping the interior of the tree? So if they don't suck for making bad recommendations, they suck for using such imprecise terminology.

That's almost as bad as calling obstacles "targets" when a target is something you aim for and an obstacle is something you avoid.. bunch of dumb asses.. can't get their act together in all these years...
 
This broken record is so freaking old. Sounds like you need to go get yourself and education. One can start with studying up and retaking the ISA test. Lots of good changes in the past few years.
It might be a ‘free’ country but being a crook and a hack is still frowned upon.
 
Daniel said:
Using drop crotching to reduce weight is tip or branch reduction. How did they ever decide to call that thinning, which has for decades referred to stripping the interior of the tree? So if they don't suck for making bad recommendations, they suck for using such imprecise terminology.

That's almost as bad as calling obstacles "targets" when a target is something you aim for and an obstacle is something you avoid.. bunch of dumb asses.. can't get their act together in all these years...
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Thinning has never been stripping or gutting a tree. That there is called lions tailing. Pull your head out of your a..
it’s hacks that can’t understand the difference
 
evo said:
This broken record is so freaking old. Sounds like you need to go get yourself and education. One can start with studying up and retaking the ISA test. Lots of good changes in the past few years.
It might be a ‘free’ country but being a crook and a hack is still frowned upon.
Click to expand...
Thread title should read Daniel Does Drama… Just more pot stirring and knicker twisting. It’s the same ol song and dance.
 
OK, but it refers to making cuts on the interior of the tree.. I call that gutting in all but the most mild cases. I leave the interior of the tree alone in most scenarios. How they confuse thinning with tip reduction boggles the mind...
 
Mick Dempsey said:
It is a terminology thing.
There are two different practices being talked about.
Internal thinning and thinning the crown using drop crotch techniques to reduce weight.
Click to expand...
Drop crotch cuts are reduction cuts as they shorten the branch. In essence reduction cuts thin the crown. My understanding, thinning cut, now called removal cut and reduction cut, sometimes called drop crotching are 2 seperate things. Are we abandoning the term reduction and calling drop crotching thinning near the tip?
 
Daniel said:
OK, but it refers to making cuts on the interior of the tree.. I call that gutting in all but the most mild cases. I leave the interior of the tree alone in most scenarios. How they confuse thinning with tip reduction boggles the mind...
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One can thin the ends, without shortening as done with drop crotching.
Sounds like what you are stuck on is YOUR interpretation.
Lots of studies done on this. Many from Australia and Matt set up accelerometers in trees and pruned with different styles. Obviously reduction or drop crotching was most effective. Thinning the tips next best (and most natural form). Gutting, crown cleaning, and lions tailing all increased movement from the control.
World is your oyster, go learn stuff.
 
Daniel said:
Using drop crotching to reduce weight is tip or branch reduction. How did they ever decide to call that thinning, which has for decades referred to stripping the interior of the tree? So if they don't suck for making bad recommendations, they suck for using such imprecise terminology.

That's almost as bad as calling obstacles "targets" when a target is something you aim for and an obstacle is something you avoid.. bunch of dumb asses.. can't get their act together in all these years...
Click to expand...
I agree with you here except that thinning, when done correctly doesnt mean stripping, gutting or lions tailing. Unfortunately that happens to often. Thinning and reductionts are different agreed.
 
evo said:
One can thin the ends, without shortening as done with drop crotching.
Sounds like what you are stuck on is YOUR interpretation.
Lots of studies done on this. Many from Australia and Matt set up accelerometers in trees and pruned with different styles. Obviously reduction or drop crotching was most effective. Thinning the tips next best (and most natural form). Gutting, crown cleaning, and lions tailing all increased movement from the control.
World is your oyster, go learn stuff.
Click to expand...
I agree thinnig cuts can be made on the interior or near the tips without shortening the branch. Drop crotching does shorten a branch and thin at the same time. But drop crotching in my mind is used to reduce end weight by shortening the length of a branch. When I do end weight reduction I employ both cuts.
 
owScott said:
I agree thinnig cuts can be made on the interior or near the tips without shortening the branch. Drop crotching does shorten a branch and thin at the same time. But drop crotching in my mind is used to reduce end weight by shortening the length of a branch. When I do end weight reduction I employ both cuts.
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That is what I like about the new standards, it spells out the goal clearly.. Like so many things it all depends on the tree, location, site, and goal and even weather the day of the work. If I recall Matt's work correctly thinning the ends or outer third of the green while not as effective as drop crotching retained near normal osculation, but the movement was dampened nearly as much as drop crotching.... In my experience end thinning is the best approach for the tree, but short lived results as the tree will quickly put on more.

Funny enough watching the same un pruned conifers, well over a decade, they seem to naturally lions tail in response to the wind. I've seen some so extreme that if I didnt see it the night before the storm I would have thought someone gaffed it and cut everything off of each limb with a short pole saw. This isn't the norm, but does happen with our douglas firs. Im talking second growth trees with limbs in the 2-4" range. Not the 'wolf' trees sitting in a field their whole life.
 
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