Realized I had been pruning oaks wrong for 15 years after a customer called me out

I was out in McMinnville last spring taking down some dead limbs on a big red oak. This older guy comes out and asks if I knew about oak wilt and how it spreads. I told him yeah I knew about it but I always seal my cuts with pruning paint so it's fine. He just shook his head and told me wound dressing is a waste of time and actually traps moisture. I went home that night and looked up the research from the University of Minnesota. Turns out I was painting my cuts for nothing and probably making things worse. All those years of thinking I was protecting the trees I was actually causing more rot. Now I just make clean cuts and let the tree handle it. Has anyone else had a moment where they found out a common practice they did was totally outdated?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabethwhite26d ago

OH MAN that's a tough one! So after you stopped painting the cuts, did you notice the trees actually heal up better or did you have to change how you cut branches too? I'm curious because I've heard conflicting stuff about making the right cut angle or leaving the branch collar vs flush cutting. Like does the tree actually seal itself off faster if you just leave it alone?

morgan91525d ago

I've got a buddy who's been an arborist for like 20 years @elizabethwhite, and he swears the whole cut angle thing is way overblown for most backyard trees. He just makes a clean cut at the branch collar and walks away, never paints anything. I watched him trim a big maple two years ago and those cuts healed up faster than the ones I had painted on my own tree. Honestly I think people stress way too much about this stuff, like the tree has been figuring it out for millions of years without us.