Root Collar Excavation

[guymayor]

Most fruit trees are grafted.

 

[ccs86]

I swapper her out for a Miho that has much better root structure. Problem solved!

 

[Leroy]

This may be a long shot but, regarding mulch- I recently listened to a presentation of findings in mulch research, I think from Michigan State. I recall that one type of mulch had no benefit to trees and the trees may have actually fared worse than the ones with no mulch. I believe it was referred to as Cedar mulch, is that what's in the picture?

 

[JD3000]

Gosh could be. We generally use hardwood, pine bark occasionally, compost, or a mix of all 3 around here. Hardwood is far and away more common.
All OM over time will provide some benefit but its interesting that cedar would be worse than others. Perhaps due to it being conifer wood or bark? Idk.

 

[JD3000]

You do some SGR pruning on that tree too?

 

[JD3000]

Could an allelopathic response from cedar. Dont know. You can get that stuff at Lowes or Home Depot but not mulch producers or supplers here.

 

[JD3000]

Yeah I have that one. Chalker-Scott published a good literature review regarding mulch and OM. Worth a read.

 

[guymayor]

Nice work on the maple, Levi. those pics can be powerful sales tools.

Mulch from Prunus sp. is fungistatic; see Percival et al.

2 good reaasons to avoid cypress mulch, the first being the loss of the trees...

 

[Treetopflyer]

Just for something to gander at .. I've been cutting too many lately been missing a little spading .

 

[Treetopflyer]

Dudes blown out

 

[evo]

nice! look at those grafts!

 

[JD3000]

red maples. Fun.
I cant find most of the after pics showing the sgr removals, perhaps throwing my phone in disgust after two days of red maples like these had something to do with that though

 

[southsoundtree]

I got asked to bid some ornamental pruning at a larger property with a decent house and pool, to the tune of $65k...

Lots of SGR. Hope to get come for the Pruning, asked to stay for the RCX.


Oh, the 65k is the tree house. Forgot to specify.



The tree house hangs on large cables from at least the 4 corners of 4 live doug- fir, which has their major root zones covered in black gravel in a 100' x 125' rectangle, lots of sun. Guess how development has treated them.

 

[JD3000]

Got pics of that?

 

[guymayor]

Seriously I don't understand blowing >1' away from the trunk.

And, look for grafting before cutting those whoppers.

Tough work any way you look at it tho.

 

[southsoundtree]

How do you assess grafting?

Thanks.

 

[guymayor]

Carefully. Scrape away outer bark and see if the inner bark (phloem) is connected.

 

[JD3000]

Yucko bucko

 

[TCtreeswinger]

so where do you proceed from there? semi mature tree with rockcanos severe girdling etc... is it worth cutting? i have a customer with fifteen year old maples who had another company do spading on one tree and it didnt recover from the root pruning, no evidence of any large roots being cut from what i can tell. I am just getting the boss to believe in this work and I dont want to go killing trees while trying to prove its value.

 

[JD3000]

Yeah extensively girdled maples are pretty common unfortunately. Ive sold some jobs to be done in phases rather than all at once. You wont really know how bad it is until excavation is done. I've told folks it can be a form or "exploratory surgery" not unlike a risk assessment.

It can certainly be a tough call and takes quite a bit of experience to feel out which trees can benefit and which ones wont. As you've seen, sometimes the cure is as bad as the disease though I would want to see how the work on the declining tree(s) was executed. Keeping the root cuts exposed and dry will go a long way.