PNW "wind thinning" "windsail reduction"

[Paul B]

Thanks for digging it up Darin, I could have sworn I remember lateral and horizontal moving deflectors.

 

[RopeArmour]

I thought wet rope was stronger.

Maybe some of the new fibres but a dry rope in nylon or polys is stronger, wet is up to 20 % loss of strength. How wet is wet, well they don't say in On Rope, Padgett and Smith. Excuse the d rail. Kinda fits in here.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Something that occurs to me is that trees compensate for lost foliage by growing more from reserve energy. With all the interior stripped out, it would seem that the growth would come at the ends, further increasing the lion tailing effect.

I'll say that the person who talked to me about the importance of end reduction is a Seattle arborist who has worked in PNW trees since some time in the '70's.

He said that back in the day they had special bars made for "skinning" out the interiors (I think some weld beads so they would slide along the branches without cutting into the main branch). He was working with the contemporary industry consensus for "safety" pruning.

 

[thattreeguy]

sounds like a terrible practice,
i just deadwood, and do end weight reduction, it's harder
but worth the time
i believe if you over thin it can damage limbs, i leave the canopy full, maybe thin the upper 1/2
i feel thinning is warranted on single trees, grouped trees are a mass the wind deflects around
if you live under trees you assume the risk, if you dont want the risk, dont live under trees

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Along the lines of Gord's wind-firming around timber cuts, trees which significantly have a change in their environments, and become relatively quickly more wind-exposed, I can see some thinning being important for their wind-firmness. Such a case is with land clearing and remnant trees, whether single or grouped. Also, with land clearing/ development can come drainage changes that needs to be considered. If storms bring winds and heavily saturated soils to tree(s) that did not develop with such conditions, thinning or removal should be considered.

 

[Burnham]

I'm not much of a fan of removal of full limbs in an attempt to lighten the sail area, but what about tipping limbs? That seems to me to have a better chance of doing some good in both proofing the limbs from breakage from wind and snow loads, as well as decreasing the sail area without risking some of the downsides already mentioned. Not much experience to go on, so I'm asking, not telling.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

sounds like a terrible practice,

He readily admits that it was terrible.

We now operate on knowledge gained from treatments such as this skinning, and topping, with decades worth of growth, decay and failures.