Scott Cullen <dscottcul@xxxx.net> wrote:
From the reading I've done crown thinning is not clearly efficacious. There
are lots of anecdotal reports to the effect "we thin the trees in our care
and ours don't blow over as much as unthinned trees."
The issue is how do we know? How do we know how much is enough. I would be
hesitant to routinely implement a management regime like "thin all x,y,z
trees just because." It then becomes a standard of care and cause for
negligence if not done. And another "necessary" service contractors are all
too anxious to provide.
Reply:
Well well...today I had a worried call from a school where I last inspected
a group of trees (all within range of buildings and / or playground) 2 years
ago. You guessed it...Corsican Pine. I feel that the main value of this
forum is the 'horse's mouth' experience of professionals (often dismissed as
'anecdotal reports'). Now, with C Pine it is fair to say that a) they are
RELATIVELY easily uprooted in extreme conditions b) crown thinning is
probably the only option available in order to try and reduce this risk
(there might possibly be some heavy laterals that could be completely
removed) and that c) in my experience, following this treatment of many C
Pine over the last 20 years, I have never seen one fail (ok, never say never
but so far so good). I think this remedial work is a very valuable service
where the target is near and significant. What would you do - nothing? How
would you feel if the tree subsequently fell in a gale? Remember, we are
talking about healthy trees with no significant defects. Normally the
clients ARE actually wanting a slightly higher level of safety than
'normal'. The point is, untouched healthy / sound C Pine can fail and,
though I am reluctant to speculate, the press photos of the recent incident
did, on the face of it, appear to show a basically sound, unthinned tree. I
will be very interested to hear more about it. Getting back to this
mornings call, following a reinspection and assuming no problems, one
possible outcome could certainly be that sound C Pine, previously thinned,
remain an acceptable risk here. But unthinned? I don't think so.
- Geoff
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