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Old timer told me I was pruning my maples all wrong last spring
I had a guy in his 70s stop by my job site in Portland and watch me for like 10 minutes. He said I was leaving branch collars too long on my red maple cuts and it was gonna cause rot pockets down the road. He showed me how to cut right at the branch collar ring instead of leaving that little nub I always left. I changed my whole routine on the next 6 trees and the wounds healed way cleaner, no staining or dieback after 3 months. It made me realize I had been doing it wrong for over 2 years based on what some YouTube video told me. Has anyone else gotten feedback from an old timer that forced you to unlearn something?
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amybarnes10d ago
So you're saying some random guy with no credentials just changed how you do things? I've been pruning maples for 8 years with the nub method and my trees are fine. Those collars are there for a reason, they protect the trunk from decay. Cutting too tight into the collar ring actually opens up the tree to bigger problems, like splitting when a heavy branch comes down in a storm. I've seen it happen twice on client trees where someone followed that "flush cut" advice and ended up with a cracked trunk 5 years later. Maybe his way works in his specific climate or soil but that doesn't mean it's universal. Youtube might be hit or miss but at least you can check multiple sources before committing.
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