My tree dropped a 64 foot branch

4 years ago

Naturally on a calm humid day. It was the big cantelevered one I was just thinking about having someone trim back. I hate sawing through this hard oak.
Mercifully it missed everything. Partially thanks to the powerline trimmers who I told to cut it back a little further last time. Them fellows earned the soft drinks and tip I left them.
If anything the tree is better balanced now. I still looked for signs of ground disturbance from any shifting and saw none. The trunk looks the same also with the exception of an 8 nch oval scrape.
Do I remember some talk about oaks doing this almost intentionally? I feel like we just had our first dry spell of the year. About 5 years back it dropped a couple sizeable branches the summer after the tornado hit the property across the street and lifted, still tearing up a bradford and box elder on the other side of the oak

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bengz6westmd

4 years ago

Species of oak? Living in the forest, it wasn't unusual for me to hear a crash somewhere within earshot during the day/night of branches falling during any weather. Clean up the break & it won't even notice. Such is the general persistence & relatively long life of most oaks.

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Comments (8)

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
Original Author
4 years ago
Pic
brothergarm
4 years ago
I have heard that some oaks drop limbs as a way of keeping competition at bay. Limbs drop and crush vegetation around it.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
4 years ago
was there any interior rotting involved.... or was it crotch angle and included bark ?

thank God it was out in the prairie ... eh???
lisanti07028
4 years ago
Wow! You all dodged a bullet there; thank all the gods that no one was on that driveway.
Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
Original Author
4 years ago
No rotting Ken. Just 40 years of growth at an ill concerived angle. The branch broke about 5 feet from its 'V' off the trunk.
gardenfanatic2003
4 years ago
If the tree was trimmed improperly at some point (which happens more frequently than you might think) it weakens the tree and improves the odds of that happening. It's best to only have a certified arborist trim your trees.

Deanna
PJ
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
Wow! Yeah the tornado last year hit me in NE Oklahoma too. Luckily, except one tiny spot about 50'x30' which happened to be right in the middle of my backyard garden, it didn't touch ground, just destroyed the tops of all my trees. Thank God, after years of procrastinating, just the winter before I'd paid an arborist a good chunk of cash to come out and seriously thin all dead wood and such from those, and some branches to restore me some sun, or I'd have gotten more than a gigantic branch from my sweet gum slammed through my brand new porch door. But in the garden -- barely missing by about two feet, a very big un-mortared cinderblock setup that would have been really bad added to that swirling -- it twisted a well-anchored tall metal garden arbor structure into a total pretzel, tore the wood fence behind all my cattlepanel trellising arches into many pieces, and "sucked up" the ground UNDER the black mat of the ground area that had been hard and solid for 17 years. Now there's this bizarre mini-mountain mounds of the softest dirt ever underneath it. I'm fixing to go rip up weeds and cut out all the mat so I can level the ground and reapply it. Suction, so weird!

PJ

My tree dropped a 64 foot branch

bengz6westmd

Comments (8)

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
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brothergarm

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lisanti07028

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My tree dropped a 64 foot branch

bengz6westmd

Comments (8)

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St LouisOriginal Author

brothergarm

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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

lisanti07028

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St LouisOriginal Author

gardenfanatic2003

PJ

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Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
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