Self-destructo Oaks

overpaidmuniguy

overpaidmuniguy

Location
Cleveland, OH
Anyone have any experience with red oaks and pin oaks coming all apart on nice calm summer days?

Over the past week and a half we've had 5 different trees come up with storm damage without the usual storm.
One failed at the base, one lost a substantial codominant, one lost a branch near a heavy limb with a big cavity, and two others lost healthy limbs well up in the canopy for reasons not too apparent. The trees are in the range of 30" - 56" dbh.

Even the ones with defects didn't seem to be "that bad", but apparently they were...

Ryan.
 
I've seen it before on a red oak. A nice, well structured large branch with no defects randomly fallen on a calm day. Sudden limb drop? You having a drought, I don't know where I read this or if I just made it up, but without the water the cells collapse, or is it they take on and store so much water....I don't know.
 
The Valley Oaks in California, Q. Lobatta, are known for sudden limb drop too. Blue Gum Eucalyptus also.

Theories abound behind the reasons for it, but so far no firm answers.

Though some common factors are involved: usually large limbs and hot days. Figure the rest.
 
In LA it happens on sweetgums/liquid amber Liquidambar styraciflua and on Chinese elm Ulmus parvifolia.

I wish I knew why it happens. I assume it's from the cells shrinking or wood drying out too much. It happens here mostly during or after hot spells.

love
nick
 
My boss told me what Kim Coder told him.

Think of limbs as spaghetti. When the cells have water they bend. When they are dry they break.

I am sure I para-phrased a bit but that is generally the idea.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Apparently, It's happening a lot now in North Carolina, and drought is the big thing that's causing problems over there.

[/ QUOTE ]I saw it on a red maple in Apex yesterday.

Good analogy by Coder, as usual.

But the first 3 failures in cleveland were not sld--sounds more like coincidence; a bad week?
 
Bad week is a possibility.
We've had rain pretty consistently this year, 8" above normal in total. Hot and humid, but not dry.

My interest was pricked after an "oh sh*t!" from the first limb that fell. It broke out from a front yard red oak next to the half-dead elm I was working on. Shot the gap between my upper boom and the streetlight. Good thing my normally daydreaming coworker was looking up too.

Beyond maybe a little too far extended, we couldn't see why it fell. Another limb broke at an old stub, but with sound wood around it. The 3 other trees definitely had defects that could have been diagnosed as such before they fell, could that sld phenomenon be the mysterious last straw which led to me getting some nice overtime?

Anyway, nice to work trees, always a chin scatcher...

Ryan.
 
[ QUOTE ]
maybe a little too far extended,

[/ QUOTE ]When ends sprawl into new clearings, it's our job to reduce them to reduce risk of failure. This does not always make it to the top of the to-do list, but it's something to add on when observed in an area that we're working in.

Long pole tools can be handy for this work.
wink.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Apparently, It's happening a lot now in North Carolina, and drought is the big thing that's causing problems over there.

[/ QUOTE ]I saw it on a red maple in Apex yesterday.

Good analogy by Coder, as usual.

But the first 3 failures in cleveland were not sld--sounds more like coincidence; a bad week?

[/ QUOTE ]

If it is just a bad week Rhode Island has been having a bad week for years. I know of a big limb that dropped on a totally still day about a week ago. I can think of two serious failures that happened last year. If you walk through the woods around here they are littered with Red and Pin oak debris. I think something is going with these trees and it needs to be taken seriously. What kind of tree problems/diseases could be causing this.
 
I saw a neighbors ash tree drop a big limb about a month ago. It was a nice calm summer evening, about 10PM, I heard a leaf rustling noise in the tree that made me look just in time to see the limb come crashing down onto the lawn. If my neighbor was sitting by his fire pit it would have killed him on the spot. The wood seemed OK at the break.
 
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