Apple Tree questions

I have a large old apple tree in my back yard. I'm guessing it's ~100 years old based on the neighborhood and the number of growth rings on a smaller tree near it that I had to cut down a few years ago. Several years ago, someone butchered it - they cut all of the main branches back to about 15 feet from the trunk. Their reason - they didn't like how it sprawled all over. I don't know how badly this shocked the tree. I've been gently pruning it every year, trying to remove the vertical suckers and open up the crown, with a fairly good rate of sucess. This year is it loaded with hundreds of apples. So, anyhow, my questions

1) I noticed this hole on one of the branches. The opening is a bit more then in inch in diameter, and you can see wood shavings that have fallen out of the hole. What would make a hole like this in a tree? I can't see anything in the hole, and don't know how deep it goes - I don't really want to stick my fingers in it :-)

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2) See how the bark is peeling? The top of the branch is dried and splitting. Is this branch dying, and should I take any action at this time, like cut it off or try to save it? The other branches do not exhibit this behavior.

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Reply to
Zootal
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the branch is dead. a woodpecker is drilling in maybe for a nest? google for more

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you can cut the branch. But I st>1) I noticed this hole on one of the branches. The opening is a bit more

Reply to
dr-solo

suspect carpenter bee. They are readily viewable "hanging" around their bores. If the hole hooks through the center of the limb, I would say definitely carpenter bee.

Reply to
Don Staples

The hole looks like the one produced by the goat moth caterpillar in Europe - and I believe there is a similar moth in the US called a carpenter moth. They are usually regarded as pests as they can kill trees. I think if you only have the one hole in an old tree, you probably don't have to worry too much.

Reply to
beccabunga

"Don Staples" (Salvage Hog)

First, with the bee inside the wood proves structure is not dead. The wood is symplastless for sure, dead, no way.

Carpenter ants for one. The tree, when wounded, sets boundaries in which the ants respect. They go to wood that was present at the time of wounding and make galleries. The galleries control the environment inside the tree and wood products. They keep moisture low and that is to the disadvantage of the decay pathogen. So, they stall rot in trees and in wood products in your house as well. When products are made from trees with many wounds, the stage is set for termites and carpenter ants. They know that wood is beginning to rot. How do they know? Anyway when flush cuts are made on trees such as conifers, with resin ducts, the area around the flush cut becomes very resinated (sic?) and resist penetration of wood preservatives. When the resins breakdown when the product is in use, the wood is subject to decay because the trees protection (resins) has come to an end and there are no preservatives in that area. I am not a wood products expert but I do understand trees and their products. In our area when you see the dust its either carpenter bees or carpenter ants. Carpenter bees dust is more uniform I believe. May not be ants but if it is - they are good for the tree! The wood peckers come for the carpenter bees in our house. They found the young bees. They leave long shivers of wood and chips. Carpenter bees do live in symplastless wood. No other single living organism house more walks of life than a tree. The only time the wood is dead is when it is ashes after fire. Always something alive living in the and part of the wood. Unless torched!

Reply to
symplastless

Dead wood, dead as your intellect. Maggots do not give life to a corpes. Nor do ideas give life to your befuddled thinking.

Reply to
Don Staples

For starters, the fungi that infect non-woody roots of trees and form mycorrhizae, are the base of the food web. It thrives in nurse logs? Up to

35% of a nurse log can be fungi cells alone. You call that dead? How do you compare that to maggots? I do not see the association?
Reply to
symplastless

Mountains 14 amphibians and reptiles, 115 birds, and 49 mammals; they tabulated use by log decay classes for each species. Logs are considered important in early successional stages as well as in old- growth forests. The persistence of large logs has special importance in providing wildlife with habitat continuity over long periods and through major disturbances (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981). Are all of these as worthless as you claim maggots to be and just better if considered dead?

Reply to
symplastless

Really not much on cognitive thought, are you, deadwood? Show me where I said maggots are worthless, or show me where a corpse is alive after maggots have invaded. Better still show me how dead wood can be revived into a living structure. Not the destructive elements breaking in down into it basic materials, in your befuddle mind fish in the sea make the sea alive, termites make dead wood alive, and your rediculous dictionary makes you alive.

Or just explain how any of your above paragraph indicates that dead wood is not dead, but alive. Use some source other than your dumb ass dictionary.

Reply to
D. Staples

Definitely not a carpenter bee hole. Carpenter bees make much smaller and neater entrance holes, perfectly round, about a 1/2" diameter, just large enough to admit the bee.... deeper inside they excavate galleries and chambers.

Woodpeckers don't make holes like that either, they need a much larger diameter to make a deep hole... woodpeckers nest in vertical wood and much higher.

That hole looks like it was made by some other insect, probably some sort of large beetle... looks more like an exit hole, the insect pupated and chewed it's way out. Insect eggs were laid on the surface, upon hatching the "worm" chewed a tiny diameter hole deep into the wood where it created a chamber, now after pupating it made a much larger and messier hole for its escape.

M-W

pu=EF=BF=BDpa noun : an intermediate usually quiescent stage of a metamorphic insect (as a bee, moth, or beetle) that occurs between the larva and the imago, is usually enclosed in a cocoon or protective covering, and undergoes internal changes by which larval structures are replaced by those typical of the imago

Reply to
Sheldon

That is one HUGE insect! Well, it certainly made a larger and messier hole :)

Reply to
Zootal

"D. Staples" wrote in message news:_IudneDQKdGHA8nVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@posted.telecomsupplyinc...

It's symplastless and not dead. Its too eazy to call something dead.

Show me where I

I did not study human biology I studied tree biology. I will leave the topic of humans and corpse to those that have studied that area. I have not.

When you build an airplane its pretty dead (unlike a tree) and later the humans and others come and board. When they have boarded it would be foolish to consider the plane dead. Or so "I" believe. In the once fertile forest - make a home and they will come. As far as a quote about so called "dead wood" by you Don Staples. "Usually, the sales material is damaged, dead, or dying. Finding a market for this material can be tricky, and incomes low. But, best to move the material, get it out of the way for future work. Take what income you can from the salvage, and set it aside for planting the site. " at

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You are not saying one word about the associates of trees that live in, on and near symplastless wood. You only say "Usually, the sales material is damaged, dead, or dying. " You are what could be termed a false prophet in this area of claims by you Don Staples. Trees connect living and dead cells in ways so that the dead parts still benefit the entire tree (SHIGO, 1999). We document that a large symplastless tree is not a wasted resource; indeed, it continues to function as an important part of a terrestrial or water system, either while remaining on the site at which it once grew, or by becoming a structural part of an aquatic or marine habitat. We aim to help anyone interested in perpetual forest productivity to understand the importance of large, symplastless woody debris. The book develops certain principles and ideas in sequence from the forest to the sea (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg1-par5). Fallen trees harbor a myriad of organisms, from bacteria and actinomycetes to higher fungi. Of these, only some of the fungi might be noticed by the causal observer as mushrooms or bracket fungi. These structures, however, are merely the fruiting bodies produced by mold colonies within the log. Many fungi fruit within the fallen tree, therefore they are seen only when the tree is torn apart. Even when a fallen tree is torn apart, only a fraction of the fungi present are noticed because the fruiting bodies of most appear only for a small portion of the year. The smaller organisms, not visible to the unaided eye, are still important components of the system (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 16-par 5). Not very dead!!!!!! Fallen trees offer multitudes of both external and internal habitats that change and yet persist through the decades. One needs an understanding of the synergistic affects of constant small changes within a persistent large structure to appreciate the dynamics of a fallen tree and its function in an ecosystem (Maser and Trappe, 1984, pg 17-par 1). Eventually the tree falls: the wood is in contact with the soil, again providing another unique ecological situation. Some species such as American chestnut would have served ecological system survival duties for 50 years or more (SHIGO, 1969). Free-living bacteria in woody residues and soil wood fix 30-60% of the nitrogen in the forest soil. In addition, 20% of soil nitrogen is stored in these components (Harvey et al. 1987). Harmon et al. (1986) reported that CWD accounted for as much as 45% of aboveground stores of organic matter. Symplastless wood in terrestrial ecosystems is a primary location for fungal colonization and often acts as refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during ecosystem disturbance (Triska and Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza

1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).

Free-living bacteria in woody residues and soil wood fix 30-60% of the nitrogen in the forest soil. In addition, 20% of soil nitrogen is stored in these components (Harvey et al. 1987). Harmon et al. (1986) reported that CWD accounted for as much as 45% of aboveground stores of organic matter. Symplastless wood in terrestrial ecosystems is a primary location for fungal colonization and often acts as refugia for mycorrhizal fungi during ecosystem disturbance (Triska and Cromack 1979; Harmon et al. 1986; Caza

1993) (Voller and Harrison, 1998).

Conclusion: What purpose and need is there that biomass be classified as dead, as in this project? Although the symplast may have died completely, the structure still continues, most of the time as a biomass. To claim to be removing just "dead" "non-functional" mass during logging operations is based on false premise, i.e., that the biomass is dead. Symplastless and symplast containing trees are linked together in the living machinery of a forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg25-par1).

I have to go get dinn er. That's a start.

Not the destructive elements breaking in down into it

Reply to
symplastless

Its awesome to see that inside the wood as the organism grows so does the hole. I have seen that in dissections.

Are you sure its not a old pruning cut?

John

Reply to
symplastless

Get back on your bipolar meds, deadwood.

Reply to
D. Staples

Define deadwood, in other words what are you saying?

Reply to
symplastless

You call yourself symplastless, what the rest of the world calls dead wood. You made up the word, and try to present it as authority for some reason, so as a responsible forester, I call you what you really are, deadwood.

Back on your meds, deadwood.

Reply to
Don Staples

Reply to
symplastless

Every thing you claim to be, but are not, deadwood.

Reply to
Don Staples

No, really, what do you mean when you say forester?

Reply to
symplastless

Yes, really, every thing you are not, but claim to be.

Reply to
Don Staples

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