subdominating

[sotc]

can you guys explain the theory/ science behind this. the city of ashland is real big on this. seems odd to me so just looking for input

[treetx]

subordinating?

ala Gilman style

[treelooker]

I think you mean subordinating... look at Gilman's book for a good description. His site http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/woody/preventivepruning.html describes it, in the powerpoints somewhere.

I've seen it overdone as an overrection to included bark, but more often I've seen it underdone when anti-topping passion burns too hot and folks are afraid to shorten limbs.

[sotc]

subordinating it must be. i went through a few of those slide shows and didnt really find anything there. well they are good presentations but not on what im looking for at the moment

[ArborOmega]

Are you talking about subordinating young trees to create a central leader? Or about subordinating to reduce risk of windthrow/breakouts etc in larger trees?

[Mr. Sir]

I think you're in the wrong forum. :hammer:

[treelooker]

What is wrong with this forum ? Pruning is tree care. Look harder in the site; it is there. Or better yet buy the book.

[NickfromWI]

Arboromega asks a good question. In my job, these days I am usually pruning trees that are 5-20 years old. Grown most often from crappy nursery stock. Though some of the pruning is to remove broken or crossing branches...I put most of my energy into creating some form of a central leader in a tree. I could tell you a lot about what I do, when and why...

Is this what you're looking for?

love
nick

[sotc]

i did a bid walk through wednesday and theres a blue spruce about 50 feet tall with 3 main leads. they want to reduce 2 of the leads by 15'.

[NickfromWI]

I say go for it. Tell them that the tree is gonna look a little funky afterwards, but explain to them WHY.

Is the intention to eventually remove the other 2? Can you you remove 1 now? I know I haven't seen it yet, but the math makes sense.

love
nick

[sotc]

this is their specs, they know what its going to look like as theyve done others (ive done some for them). no they are not planning to remove the other 2 leads as thats most of the canopy. im trying to figure out for my self why is this practice being used? making topping cuts (they really are) and removing food source from the tree for what? most bad unions dont fail

[NickfromWI]

I'm just shooting from the hip here...but...

You are right- most of what we call "bad" unions DON'T fail. BUT we do know that there is a higher rate of failure among bad unions and strong unions. When I see a bad union, I never say there is a high chance of that failing- I just point out that there is a highER chance of that failing (some report 2x more likely to fail than a good union).

So we are removing a large amount of food producing foliage/canopy to reduce the chance of future failure. Like losing a finger to save your hand or something like that.

Cut it back to something good!

love
nick

[treelooker]

Cable?

[NickfromWI]

Guy, good thinking. I was thinking the same thing. I'm thinking Willie needs to go out and get us some pics!

love
nick

[Old Monkey]

I think tree species is pretty important when considering if a bad union will fail. Siberian elms and willows seem to fail at a much higher rate than other trees around here. I have only seen cedars fail around here from root failure and not bad unions. Multiple topped cedars here seem to do alright.

[sotc]

ill try and get some pics when i go down there next week. most of what they subordinate are conifers, red cedar, redwood, spruce, havent seen it on a pine yet. a cable seems like a much better fix mostly. to me anyway.

[TC3]

The hard-and-fast rule of a central leader fails most of us when it comes to trees that are post adolescent, regardless of their size.
Once a tree has been allowed to have 2-3 central leaders, the decision to reduce it becomes severe at a certain age. Conifers seem to handle the 'pruning' better than most >>> they will simply react by either a central leader (leave alone) or multiple leads (take your pick).
Cabling is an option, for sure.
Gosh, what about leaving well enough alone ? Let it be what it is. We can't "fix" everything, ey ?

[treelooker]

I've never seen a fork failure on redcedar. Sounds like nutsy overreacting to narrow crotches.

[Old Monkey]

After further thought, I would also add that the age of the tree is very important in whether I subordinate competing tops of trees. If the tree is young, I have no problem doing it. If it is a mature tree, I am far less likely to do it.

[Blinky]

What is wrong with this forum ? Pruning is tree care. Look harder in the site; it is there. Or better yet buy the book.

I think that was a joke Guy.... SUB DOMinating...

[Frans]

Funny thing is,
The definition of 'excurrent' & 'decurrent' changes with the age of the tree.
So you cant really say a particular species of tree is one or the other.
An accurate statement is:
"A tree can exhibit excurrent or decurrent characteristics".

[treelooker]

I think that was a joke Guy.... SUB DOMinating...I still don't get it...too dense I guess, and yes many trees start out excurrent and then turn decurrent.

Boy a pic or two would be good here.

[Blinky]

I still don't get it...too dense I guess, and yes many trees start out excurrent and then turn decurrent.

Boy a pic or two would be good here.

Never mind... at least you have a lot of knowledge and experience with trees!

[Old Monkey]

Guy's just being coy, he regularly climbs in studded leather chaps and a ball gag.

[NickfromWI]

Frans, regarding the age of the tree...most of the trees we plant are ones that will be decurrent when mature. For the first ten years of their life, we prune them to have excurrent structure to encourage proper scaffolding branches and all that jazz. I know that as these trees mature, they will sway from excurrentness, and that is fine.

love
nick

[sotc]

ok here it is

[sotc]

so they want to leave the red stem and reduce the others to approx where the yellow ends

[treelooker]

Good job on the pics. The pruning specs seem reasonable to me. Should be a one-time subordination treatment, fixing the codominant problem in that high-target area.

[TC3]

Leave it alone.

[treelooker]

i dunno, tc. 3 main stems seems like too many.

what do the forks look like? That will tell whether the pruning would be done for structure or aesthetics.

[Old Monkey]

Guy has more book learning than me, but my gut says leave it alone like Teresa says.

[sotc]

aestheticly id say leave it alone. it will look ugly when its done. ill try and remember this thread and take a pic after its done. wont know who gets the job till i think dec 7. probably wont be me but thats ok, i dont want it for what it usually goes for

[NickfromWI]

From the pic- I agree with sotc. If looks were the concern, leave it alone. It looks fine the way it is.

If it were my tree, I'd be happy to subordinate the 2 you marked in yellow. Makes sense.

love
nick

[sotc]

im still looking for reasons this is reccomended, so far its all the same argument people use for topping

[NickfromWI]

I think the big difference is here you are topping part of the tree so another part of the tree can take over/resume dominance in the tree. Theoretically, and more so on small trees, this can lead to a BETTER structure with a stronger canopy, whereas topping does the opposite.

love
nick

[treelooker]

it will look ugly when its done. For how long? In tree time, it will fill the holes made by the reduction cuts.

That's not books talking, it's just looking at the tree with the tree's own chronological perspective.

The need to subordinate this thing is not great, unless the forks are defective. So I am not arguing with the "leave it alone" approach, just looking ahead 20 years to a big storm and risk of splitting. This is also how the muni guy who wrote the specs looks at the tree, not how it will look tomorrow.

[Old Monkey]

Species and size, make me say leave it alone but those trees may behave differently in Oregon. I don't think subordinating would hurt it or make it look bad for very long.


Guy, I was sold on subordinating by one of the city arborists. He took pictures of trees that he subordinated over time. It made for a very informative slide show. Has anyone done any time lapse movies of trees growing? I think that would be helpful to see.

[sotc]

i may try it with this tree, its going to be done by some one so i can still take pics

[treelooker]

Joe up the road from me thinks thinning is very often better. I disagree. Here's his study:

http://www1.brcc.edu/murray/research/subordination/default.htm

[Mike Maas]

Colorado spruce rarely make narrow crotches from my observation, and they are so thick that the branches become intertwined.
I guarantee it will be a huge task to pull the tops off the tree once they are cut. You will have to do multiple cuts just to get them apart.

Gilman came to our WAA meeting and presented his notion of crown reduction a few years back, and as an actual practitioner of tree work, everything he said was like arborist 101, very simple.
Then he started putting up pictures and asking audience members (mostly isa certified) where to cut and it was a real eye opener because it went right over many of their heads. Many of them never really put any time out in the field doing pruning, other than some work they did in collage on 6" and under nursery trees.
This spruce is an example of what I'm saying. If you never climbed and cut a spruce, you would think the codominance might be a problem.
I would have the person who made the call, come and pull on the rope after you make the cut. After he sees it won't come apart, next time he might make a different call.

[treelooker]

Gilman came to our WAA meeting and presented his notion of crown reduction a few years back, and as an actual practitioner of tree work, everything he said was like arborist 101, very simple.
Then he started putting up pictures and asking audience members (mostly isa certified) where to cut and it was a real eye opener because it went right over many of their heads. Many of them never really put any time out in the field doing pruning, other than some work they did in collage on 6" and under nursery trees..Ha! Sounds like a much-needed type of session for those in attendance. If they don't keep one foot in the field they can lose touch in a hurry.

Yes much to be said for trees supporting themselves by intertwining branches.;)

[sotc]

very good input mike thanks

[Mike Maas]

Thanks Scott. One thing should be noted, that's my location. Our Colorado Spruce are great trees, short trem. We have a canker that kills them fairly early in life, about the time they get to be 30 or 40 years old.
So I don't see a lot of mature CS.
I hope you still get a chance to post a picture of the subordination of the codomination, or the subdominating as you called it.:D

[Underwor]

I have seen at least 3 codominant spruce lose one part in the past 10 years. In all cases it missed everything important, but they had very little intertwining, mostly just two side by side trees, shaded so much in the center that nothing was there after half the top fell out.
I am not saying that it does not happen, just rarely in ND. Of course up here american elm is brittle. You can not get it to hinge around the tree anything like a branch will in Il or OH. They almost never rip down the tree if you want them to on a removal. I think it is the difference in amount of moisture they get that affects the way the cells develop. But again that is just a guess. I know the response is different.

I have had good luck with subordination type cuts, including some I accidently did in IL back in the 70's. I would not take out any more than what was indicated in the photo with the lines added. In this type of tree I don't believe it takes much to give one side dominance.

My thoughts.

[sotc]

found a tree that this would make sense on today. when i do it ill post pics

[sotc]

one before pic, 2 after pics and a pic from last year when i thinned the top a little.
critique please

[brendonv]

Great job from what I know.

Are you going to gradually reduce that one limb? If not, seems like down the road there will be some included bark.

Looking at that pic makes me miss working at my old job, his clientel were from 20 yrs and all we did was pruning. I miss pruning everyday :( .

[Skwerl]

Willie, why does that tree still have old support sticks tied to the trunk? Are the roots broken? I've never understood why people insist on tying up their trees to support sticks and leaving them tied up for years on end.

[sotc]

hes left them in the ground and recently retied them. i told him they werent doing much any more and just to get rid of them when it dries out in the spring. one limb has grown through the tie, i removed that limb after the pic was taken, its the lowest horizntal limb on the left

[treelooker]

On the left lead that you subordinated, it looks like the tip still interfered with the main lead. Maybe the photo shows it more crowded than it really is, maybe not. If so, i would snip back that tip just to avoid contact in a moderate wind.

Nice pics, good looking work.

[Old Monkey]

I like it Willie.

Brian if you don't tie them down real good, they'll escape.

[sotc]

guy i think it just looks that way, unless i misunderstand you

[Paul B]

...if you don't tie them down real good, they'll escape.

I am going to find a way to work that line into my tree talks. Thanks OM!:D