Many trees develop poor crotch angles which is the angle between the main trunk and a side branch. The wider the angle, the more stable the growth and balance there can be between the trunk and branch. Less than a 30 degree angle between the trunk and side branch would be a general rule of thumb to use in determining if a tree would have a bad trunk to branch angle. These tight angles should be removed when the tree is young to allow the canopy to grow properly. Once the tree continues to grow and these side branches become massive, large cracks can occur in the angle area and in many cases are not visible. Water gets in these cracks and can expand the crack larger from freezing and thawing action. Insects such as carpenter ants invade and can damage or weaken the area. Disease can also enter through the wounded area. Once the area is weakened sufficiently, all it takes is strong wind blowing in the proper direction for the tree to lose part of its branches or snap off part of the trunk. These areas sometimes are not visible to the naked eye but other times they are visible and when we notice a potentially dangerous situation, we will remove the branch to save the tree. On many occasions, the damage is too severe or the tree is out of balance and can pose a risk if it is not removed.
The wood will be cut up by our staff and will be split to be sold next season and will also be available for us to use to heat our maintenance building in our wood burning stove.
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| Gamma tree beginning the removal of the tree from 12 tee. 1/2 of the tree was blown off in a storm. The 1/2 that hung over the cemetery was blown off. The wound is about 4' in area in the middle of the main trunk. |
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| Gamma tree removing the limbs from the large oak behind 12 tee. |
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| Down to the totem pole. A little noisy from the chipper but a video explaining how our contractor is removing the tree limb by limb. |
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