View Single Post
  #4   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 09:20 PM
Archimedes Plutonium
 
Posts: n/a
Default help this old apple tree



P van Rijckevorsel wrote:

Sean Houtman schreef
Look up some books by Alex Shigo, in particular "A New Tree Biology..."

where you can learn a whole lot about tree health.

+ + +
Not sure if this applies here. I am glad enough to have worked through "A
New Tree Biology" (essentially a collection of black and white pictures with
long captions/short texts), but it is hard work, what with Shigo's tendency
to make sweeping statements and his sloppyness in doing so.


Funny how apply and apples are almost identical


Actually Shigo feels that when it is time for a tree to die it should be
allowed to do so. What does come forward from Shigo's work is that wounds
into sound wood should be avoided as much as possible and kept as small as
possible.

In general it should be a good idea to remove as much rotting wood from a
tree as possible, but not at the cost of cutting into sound wood. So the
general advice is to get all the loose stuff out of the tree.


What I was hoping for information on how to deal with this apple tree in that
it is missing its core. Something has eaten away the entire core of the trunk
at ground level. So the only thing holding up the entire tree is 3/4 of the
outer
layer where 1/4 is gone and the entire core is gone.

What I was hoping is information as to whether a hollow trunk missing its
core can survive with some new green shoot eventually making a new
healthy trunk.

I wonder if experienced apple growers when they are confronted with such a tree

whether they cut it down or whether they just coax it along.

I wonder whether the ants I see in the hollow trunk are helping the tree from
other bad insects or whether the ants are speeding up the death.

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies