Branch Saver Installation Question

802climber

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Nov 1, 2013
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I am going to be cabling a co-dom Norway spruce where the leaders may be too close together to splice in the Branch Saver.

Wondering if there are any tricks to install Branch Saver in this situation. The tree is not huge and the crotch is very included but not splitting.

Would like to avoid drilling if possible, but will use steel if I have to. Are Norway spruce decent compartmentalizers?

Thanks!
 
Don't drill if you don't have to. I'd splice loops or buy eye and eye slings
 
Willie, what is your take on the tree being "very included"?


802, can you be a bit more specific than "not huge"?

Pictures ALWAYS help.
 
Very included hasn't failed yet. Keeping the tree from hyper-extending could keep it from failing altogether. But then again is it such a weak attachment that shear weight down could fail? Hard to tell without being there but I rarely go steel without an active crack.
 
Splice an endless loop through the slings.
Or cable and shakle the slings.

Looping above laterals might work, if you like BranchSaver.

Installing a 5/16" steel cable with terminal fasteners requires one small 3/8" hole. Just sayin.
 
Rather than being rude and calling every proponent of synthetic dynamic cabling in this industry a buncha uneducated amateurs?

I'll try to be polite by educating them about thigmomorphogenesis and branch crossover dynamics. Why greenhouse saplings are skinny scrawny and weak in comparison to their outside brethren weathering the elements and thereby growing stronger and more robust.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thigmomorphogenesis

Where's the line between professionalism and snake oil sales drawn my friends?

Jomo
 
Looping above laterals might work, if you like BranchSaver.

Installing a 5/16" steel cable with terminal fasteners requires one small 3/8" hole. Just sayin.
2 holes ;) I just heard you say you don't cable to buildings :)
Rather than being rude and calling every proponent of synthetic dynamic cabling in this industry a buncha uneducated amateurs?

I'll try to be polite by educating them about thigmomorphogenesis and branch crossover dynamics. Why greenhouse saplings are skinny scrawny and weak in comparison to their outside brethren weathering the elements and thereby growing stronger and more robust.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thigmomorphogenesis

Where's the line between professionalism and snake oil sales drawn my friends?

Jomo
No idea what your post means other than your the smartest?
 
Is there a perceived structural fault or a genuine structural fault?

How is a little artificial structural support in one direction different than a supportive crossover branch in nature?

What happens in nature when that supporting crossover's suddenly removed?

So a tree can be tricked into relying on support by nature or man. But the fact remains that without support being ongoing throughout the tree's life, it becomes a ticking liability to the tree's structural integrity.

If you perceive a weight related structural liability? The very first choice to mitigate that liability's to prune terminal end weight back judiciously, while still allowing a full freedom of that branch's natural range of motion regardless of which direction the wind blows from.

Use of synthetic dynamic cables is contradictory to thigmomorphogenesis in arboriculture as practiced anywhere in the world. Artificial support weakens wood structure, the opposite of strengthening, which is only achieved by bearing the entire weight loads unaided, be it snow, rain, wind, fruit or uppity ape.

Jomo
 
Between Treegongfu and Jomo, we should about have the world market for verbal confuscation covered.
 
I'd love nothing more than one of you experienced arborists giving a fact based defense for supporting branches in trees a little bit with rubber bands!

It's all the latest trend in defying the laws of nature I've spent a lifetime observing up close n personal.

Is your synthetic thingamobob tougher and more durable than the tree you intend to support with it?

Do snow loads trigger reaction wood growth my friend?

Or is that an old wives tale that should never get in the way of milking a client?

Jomo
 
Think of it more like a limiting strap on an axle. Only comes into play when something moves far enough.

10845979_775669155802361_6488459968439079829_n.jpg

We're also selling peace of mind to a large degree. . .
 
So depending on an artificially created strap/crossover support point is now a good thing that brings peace of mind?

Rather than in truth weakening the branch in the very wood below the attachment point that needs to put on reaction wood growth and increased diameter.

So snug the system up nice n taught and put all worry that without that support for life, your structural integrity has in fact been weakened rather than strengthened over time, out of mind?

Shall we embrace short term expediency that encourages dependency on artificial and comparatively short lived points of support?

Or shun them as destructive to the long term structural integrity of not only trees, but the tree industry itself.

You can't have it both ways without denying the laws of reaction wood dynamics proven long ago.
Does that short lived artificial thing indeed save branches, or weaken branches compared to the other unsupported branches?

There are not two correct answers to that question IMO, only one supported by science.

How long before that total misunderstanding of thigmomorphogenesis fundamentals finally sinks in?

Jomo
 
.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thigmomorphogenesis

Where's the line between professionalism and snake oil sales drawn my friends?

Jomo

The line is industry standards. That wiki link apparently is based off of 2 studies, 1973 & 1990. Yes, there is basis and fact there but you're either ahead of the world in your understanding or using your observations and a little science to create a hypothesis and preaching it as fact. Maybe if you could explain it more clearly folks would understand and possibly change the standards. For now, it feels like snake oil ;)
 
Which begs the question of whether our industry itself is corrupt when TCI Mag and an ISA BCMA, all give the big thumbs up to creating artificial and temporary points of support due only to perceived structural flaws as opposed to real flaws, which merit permanent long term steel support installed correctly?

Why replace something proven for decades n decades, with something inferior in terms of durability and working lifespan?

Who is at fault when that support fails within the first or second decade, while many of my installed cables are now almost 30 years old?

Encouraging artificial support without a genuine flaw in the wood structure may make money, but it makes zero scientific sense. Look at the wood diameters of crossovers in nature, say Brazilian peppers? Note how the inner limbs of the originating branch can be as small as one inch in an unstressed inner location prior to any crossover points, as many as a dozen. But once beyond that last crossover support, branch diameter increases dramatically as a direct result of the forces newly exposed to without support.

If you can't deliver long Term?

Then prune it to lighten the load and lengthen the amount of time the tree has to react to the forces exposed to naturally, that is by putting on diameter by producing reaction wood as needed.

Like given a frail old blind client a balsa wood cane to lean on...

Jomo
 
Does that short lived artificial thing indeed save branches, or weaken branches compared to the other unsupported branches?

It almost surely weakens them if it limits their normal movement. It could also provide support in the event of unusual loading. But beyond all that, it can save entire trees that paranoid customers might otherwise remove unnecessarily, and will not complicate the inevitable removal process to the same degree that steel can.

I don't think all application of dynamic cabling products equals snake oil. Interesting conversation though.
 
It is an interesting and very telling topic.

There are millions of naturally occurring crossovers in who knows how many tree species that illustrate what happens to the supported branch when the supporting lower branch is removed, catastrophic failure.

It even kills loggers on the ground who attempt to fell intertwined trees without true knowledge of the forces involved!

Kinda like a law of reaction wood physics that's scientifically repeatable, as well as predictable IME.

Jomo
 
Nobody's at fault when you string up a branch "saver" in an Alnus or Betula to hold codominates together, and it girdles the cambium on both leaders?

Is there a caution not for use on fragile barked trees disclaimer I missed bro?

Branch saver my azz...

Jomo
 
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