repairing bark damage on large oak

8 years ago

Lightning struck a 4 ft diameter oak leaving a visible 3ft long by 7 inch wide area where the bark was ripped off. The bottom of this area is only about 6 inches from the ground. The bark is about 3/4 inches in thickness.

My plan is to broaden the injury so as to remove any bark that is not attached and try to achieve an elliptical injury pattern. I will then grade the remaining bark so that there is not a stepoff at the site of the injury so that there will be less of a likelihood for additional bark to be stripped off in the future.

Whether to apply a coating over the denuded wood is controversial and I routinely do not when cutting branches, but in this case I plan to if only for cosmetic purposes on an injury that will take a very long time to heal.

Any helpful thoughts or experiences with this type of repair would be appreciated.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (11)

Smivies (Ontario - 5b)
8 years ago
"My plan is to broaden the injury so as to remove any bark that is not attached and try to achieve an elliptical injury pattern. I will then grade the remaining bark so that there is not a stepoff at the site of the injury so that there will be less of a likelihood for additional bark to be stripped off in the future."

I would strongly advise against this! The tree, even now, is forming callous material at the margins of the wound (at the point where the temperature didn't kill the cambium layer). At that point, the cambium layer will start forming new xylem (sapwood) and phloem (bark) to eventually grow around the exposed heartwood. This process is not impeded by the dead bark on the tree which will simply break away after 2-3 years. If you remove the dead bark, you are defining the injury margin, not the tree. As for 'shaving' the live bark down...that removes and damages the cambium layer which will further damage the tree's ability to heal itself. As the tree heals, you'll see a thick layer of new bark/wood start to creep over the wound (like REALLY thick molasses flowing).

If you need to trim anything off, just remove the loose flapping pieces of bark to a point close to (but not at) the trunk
Smivies (Ontario - 5b)
8 years ago
As for painting the wound, if only for your own aesthetics, do it with something non-toxic.
Related Discussions
Repair of wind damage tree and split trunk
Q
Comments (14)
I agree with Tn_Tree_Man that a drop-crotching/reduction cut would be the preferred solution for this situation. But, if you do decide to keep the split crotch for a while (it's not gonna last forever), I would rework that rodding job. It's hard to tell scale by the picture, but it looks like you could go up in size just a little. Go get you a stainless steel threaded rod (I'd probably use two) a little larger than what you have. They should be hard to find, and somewhere like Graingers carries them, if they aren't available at your nearest big-box store. The next change would be to carefully trace around the washers (similar to what you have now or thicker) with a knife and remove the bark under the washers. You want those washers against xylem (not the bark), and I would try to embed the washers so the outer edge is approximately equal with the outer edge of bark. This will give you a lot better support and allow the tree to start covering over that wound (and the hardware). One you get the washers seated properly, cut the rod off flush with the outer edge of the nuts. In a short time, the tree will cover over the hardware and rodding wound, but your crotch is still gonna be a magnet for rot. Maybe you'll get a decade or so out of that trunk before significant rot leads to failure.
...See More
included bark and resultant damage
Q
Comments (11)
IMHO, It's often a matter of degree of inclusion and species. I see redbuds that have very good branch angles, but when a branch is pruned out, the attachment at the joins is still rather weak and easily broken, and still will very often have bark inclusions even when the branches were at good angles. Conversely I see trees that solidly fuse branches together that you would never expect. In my fall photos thread is a very large Sugar Maple that I found on the University of Arkansas campus. With that tree, many many branches and crossing branches have fused solidly together in way you would NEVER expect. How do I know they are solid? In Jan 2009 we had the worst ice storm on record, that stripped many trees to basically bare trunk, and this tree suffered almost no damage. The branch joints would have given way then, if they were not extremely solid. So to reintegrate, IMHO it's all but impossible to avoid some inclusions. It's more about how bad are they, what species of tree, and the particular circumstances of that tree. Arktrees
...See More
Shumard Oak damage vs Scarlet oak in ice storms
Q
Comments (22)
shortleaf2002, that photo looks like the damage I see on many of the maples and other soft wood trees in our area. One of my oaks that is growing with a main leader trunk all the way up had lateral branches, growing off its trunk, broken about 4 feet way from the trunk. Non of them have stripped bark along the part of the branch which was not broken. Also none of the main leader trunk has bark stripped, off like seen on the modified leader trunk in your photo. I am concerned that once all the broken branches of my oaks are pruned back to the break, the side branches will look pretty strange with the short lengths of branches which remain undamaged between where they attached to the trunk and the four feet further-out pruning. My other 30 year old Shumard has a modified leader trunk starting about 8 feet up. On that tree, once the needed massive corrective pruning job is done, this might present a good time to try and shorten one of the leaders so a better main leader can develop. Of course the tree specialist, might tell me it is too late to try such a correction on the tree. I have noticed that all three of my Shumard oaks are most heavily damaged on their north and northeast sides. My Scarlet oak is not protected by any other trees or building on it's north, west or east sides. There is a two story house just 40 feet to the South of this oak, and an enormous cottonless cottonwood tree in the back yard of that neighbor's house, that cottonwood tree is southeast of my Scarlet oak, It does not make sense that the cottonwood or the two story house would have sheltered my Scarlet oak to prevent it from suffering damage. Especially since my 8-9 foot tall Green Giants growing near, in a East west line, but still just south of the Scarlet oak, collected so much ice that their tops bent over toward the north all the way to the ground from the weight of all that ice. That indicates to me that my Scarlet also must have collected as much ice on its north and east sides as my Shumards. Still it's side branches that come off its main leader trunk did not break at all. All around town, I see other shumard oaks with the same type of side branch damage as I have described mine. So that also leads me to think that the damage my shumards suffered was not specific to just my three shumards. Late yesterday afternoon our electricity was restored, and we checked out of the hotel and returned home this morning. Since returning home, I have been busy cleaning out my refrigerator and doing laundry, my DH spent the day at work, and so we have not had time to do anything to the trees yet. Tomorrow it is predicted to rain and Saturday predicted to snow about 2-4 inches. Hopefully, if I am not being unrealist, we can at least do the corrective pruning on my damaged trees by next week, several days prior to Christmas.
...See More
Repairing damaged edge grain butcher block - replacing a board?
Q
Comments (3)
As a baker I use large maple benches (made by Boos) and sometimes we repair small spots in them by dowelling. I'll use a twist drill of the appropriate size, coat a slightly too-long dowel with woodworking glue, and nudge it in. After drying it sands down and nearly disappears. The dowel should slide in dry without difficulty but without sloppiness, either. If one dowel doesn't quite fill the void you can let the glue dry and do another that overlaps the first. It may require a drill guide to get the holes just where you want them. Take a piece of scrap and drill a nice, straight hole of the same size. Locate, and drill throught the guide. Make the scrap long enough that a helper can hold it in place for you if necessary, or so that you can clamp it. It's not a furniture grade repair but might serve your purpose. You can try it out on a back edge, perhaps, to see how you like it. Good luck, Mark
...See More
Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
8 years ago
Creek, where are you? I think the suggestions are different for coating pruning wounds if you are in an area prone to oak wilt or something else.
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
8 years ago
The open injury will soon oxidize and it won't hurt so bad to look at it. But, if you must disguise the wound, a thin coating of water soluble black latex paint won't be too injurious.

Black is a color that disappears in the landscape, more so than any other color you could choose. A watered down latex will not be noticeable.
brandon7 TN_zone7
8 years ago
"Whether to apply a coating over the denuded wood is controversial..."

Well, yes, I guess so. Some people know it's not the thing to do, and others have yet to gain a proper understanding of the science. But as Rhizo said, a THIN coating of water-soluble latex probably won't do significant damage.
creekweb
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks all for your comments.

Regarding the idea of removing the unattached bark - I believe the idea behind this approach is to remove pockets where water might accumulate and fungus proliferate leading to rotting of the heartwood. Also would remove a potential place for insects. So the tradeoff would be a slightly larger wound for a lower risk of damage to the wood. Smivies' opinion is noted. Any others with opinions on this?

Oak wilt is a local problem - would that change the recommendations for coating the wound?
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
8 years ago
jesus ...

the tree can live 100 years.. and you want to act within hours of an injury ..

step away form the tree .. for at least a year ...

the wound is rather meaningless ion regard to the bazillion volts of electricity that went thru it ... how about we just give it some time.. to see what happens ...

is it.. in any manner.. hanging over any structure of value??? /.

hire a CERTIFIED professional arborist before you do anything .. and every dude with a chainsaw is not necessarily .... a learned.. certified professional tree peep

you are way to intent on instant gratification .. for a tree that can live multiple centuries ... without anything from you ...

DONT DO ANYTHING

ken
brandon7 TN_zone7
8 years ago
Creekweb, I think there may be some good ideas in what you propose, but it's hard to give specific advice without being there and seeing what's going on. Cleaning up the wound site is often beneficial, but you do want to be very conservative in what you do. It's probably better to do too little than too much.

With experience, you can have a pretty good idea of what part of the bark is going to fail anyway. That part may be better off removed. Torn, ripped up bark will not benefit the tree if left in place. Any chance of a picture or two?
wisconsitom
8 years ago
Mostly, I fall on the 'do less' side of this. Like Smivies said, callus tissue is the necessary thing to have form right now, and that's not something you do or control. Since you did say oak wilt is in your area (you did say that, right?), then and only then, a coating of regular asphaltic tree paint is in order on the wound. Otherwise, no such item necessary-ever. As for "cleaning up" the wound, I'd do as little as possible. Years ago, there was a technique called "tracing out" the wound. that has, as far as I'm aware, largely fallen by the wayside. It could be described in very similar terms to what you were proposing. I doubt it means much.

+oM
Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
8 years ago
"
- Research has shown wound dressing is not normally needed on pruning cuts. However, if wounds need to be covered to prevent insect transmission of certain diseases such as oak wilt, use latex rather than oil-based paint."
www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/trees-shrubs/pruning-trees-shrubs/

I think they said from April to October in oak wilt terrotory you SHOULD seal oak wounds and pruning cuts. Therr is bound to be a better article out there. My time is limited though.
jocelynpei
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Yes, try leaving it alone for a year and then report back on how it's doing.
Here is a picture of a walnut (heartnut) a year after Hurricane Arthur; no treatment except cutting off the broken bit. As you can see, it was pulled out of the trunk right to the centre of the tree. Picture attached. http://s6.postimg.org/gxcod0is1/IMG_0002.jpg

repairing bark damage on large oak

Comments (11)

Smivies (Ontario - 5b)

Smivies (Ontario - 5b)

Related Discussions

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7

brandon7 TN_zone7

creekweb
Original Author

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

brandon7 TN_zone7

wisconsitom

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis

jocelynpei

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

repairing bark damage on large oak

Comments (11)

Related Discussions

creekwebOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

creekweb
Original Author