After Accident                                     1 Year Post Treatment

 

David Vaughan of Etter Tree Care in San Antonio presented in the December edition of the Lunch Speaker Series on repairing trees after trunk damage after accidents like vehicle collisions.  Here is a follow up from Mr. Vaughan following the presentation:

 

During my presentation, Rebecca Johnson asked if I thought the Tree-age procedure would work if the tree were 100% girdled.  I replied that I did not know but thought it was worth a try.  I have given that question some more thought and done some technical reading and would like to modify my answer.  I am convinced the procedure would work even if the tree were 100% girdled as long as you get protection over the wound within about 3 days and we have active xylem present.

A tree has all of its defenses located at the wound site and is not trying to transport anything to that location.  The fact that phloem and cambium has been removed does not effect the ability of the tree to form surface callus by parenchyma cells.  This surface callus forms quickly and quickly differentiates into functioning cambium and phloem.  I think quickly means within about a month.

Reasonably healthy Trees have good stores of "food"  that allow them to survive through bad times like drought, flooding, etc.  They can survive off these stores long enough for this process to process.

Try Tree-age on any wound that still has active xylem that you get to in a reasonable time.  Thanks Rebecca for a great question.  By the way, I will try this on a tree or two this year and let you know the results.

 

 

 

  

David M. Vaughan
Certified Arborist TX 0118
TOWC 0061