Root Collar Excavation
- Thread starter Leroy
- Start date
evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
Holy crap.... yeah, it's a Katsura. Granted I made the tree owner water the crap out of it. We are in one of the driest years on record and in a rainshadow climate that has niche populations of prickly pear cacti. However I've never seen results like this before.
Looks like your bark tear is outside the removal cut, so unless it's grafted your golden. Have you ever come back on a tree like that a few years later to see the response growth? I am less than a year into root work, but I keep this in the back of my mind constantly when doing this work.
evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
Gotcha. That does help, however I'm more so questioning epicormic response. Often we try our best but cannot make perfect cuts, and even when perfect cuts are made in the canopy there is a epicormic responce. Just wondering what the follow up looks like. Obviously I haven't been doing root work long enough to get an idea of a base line, to figure out targeted follow ups.
That's not a tree. Clearly, you've un-Earthed a mass chicken burial and stuck a baseball bat in it.
guymayor
Branched out member
- Location
- East US, Earth
evo why blow so far from the flare? Needless exposure and drying?
evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
That’s what the tree needed. Restore original grade, and to correct mulch volcano. I didn’t move much dirt, bark dust mulch was about 12” thick up the stem tapering down to 4-6” on the edge of the spade job 4-6’ from the trunk at most. We expanded the mulch ring by folding the existing mulch back and then adding arborist chips over the works. Most of the roots removed were advantageous growing in the mulch volcano, and needed to be removed to provide access to the sgr’s. I also observed where the roots were grafted further out from the trunk, so I removed that portion of root. For example a sgr was removed as close to the point of origin as practicable completely to the point were it was grafted another root.
We have severely compacted glacial till soils. It’s estimated that my area was covered with well over a mile thick ice sheet. 90% of our island is only a giant hill of compressed glacial rubble and silt. Pockets of sand, clay, peat layers/pockets through out, and varies wildly. My son and I will comb the beaches for million year old chunks of peat, then we pick it apart to exhume flattened sticks, twigs and occasionally leaf fragments.
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cerviarborist
Very stable member
- Location
- Florida, USA
See "Demolishing Donuts" on Youtube...
...or at any police station.
...or at any police station.
CutHighnLetFly
Been here a while
- Location
- Cape Cod, MA
That s what you says about all your pruning cuts too isn't it hahah
evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
Here is a great example. This is an alluvial flood plane about 10-14 million years ago. In many areas you need a digging bar for anything deeper than 3-10”. Most home sites are previously logged, topsoil scraped off, subdivided and then built.
evo
Been here much more than a while
- Location
- My Island, WA
Correction. The peat layer shown by the black layer with the protrusion is approximately 100,000 to 200000 years old. It’s the erratic’s (giant boulders, riding on top of the glaciers) fossils which date to 14 mil yrs old. These contain palms, cinnamon, sassafras, pine, alder, dawn redwood, and a few other I cannot recall a few gins in
Dynamite I'd say
RopeShield
Carpal tunnel level member
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
I have switched from chainsaw surgery to cordless drill with spade bits.
- Much easier to drill out the offending root
- spade bits are easy and inexpensive to sharpen and replace, respectively
- you can step down size like 1 1/4" or larger for quick material removal to 1/4" to reduce collateral damage
data farm 26
Been here a while
- Location
- 7th level
Did about 20 rcx today by hand on some crabapple about 12" dbh. Was a bit of a day. Thinking back on this old thread, a lot of good info here. And used a new technique mentioned by southsound Sean, to start on the outside and work your way in. For some reason I always started by the trunk and work out from there. This new way is much easier. 
