Trunk chop while still in ground?

19Mateo83

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Hi folks, I’m new here but have been looking in the shadows for quite some time. I’m sure the answer is obvious to this but I have a collection location for American hornbeams and American beech trees that is on private land. I have the ability to do trunk chops and leave them in the ground to recover. Is there any downside to this?
 

rockm

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Hi folks, I’m new here but have been looking in the shadows for quite some time. I’m sure the answer is obvious to this but I have a collection location for American hornbeams and American beech trees that is on private land. I have the ability to do trunk chops and leave them in the ground to recover. Is there any downside to this?
Very very bad idea. I did this 20 years ago when I began collecting, thinking it would give me a head start.

It does the opposite. Trees growing in the woods are in close competition with their neighbors. When you chop the trunk on a hornbeam mostly you just weaken it and allow its neighbors to over or out grow it. Chopped trunks left undug usually die, in my experience. Hornbeam can be collected "all at once" with dramatic trunk and root reduction (up to 95 percent root reduction or even more)
 

sorce

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Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce
 

19Mateo83

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Thank you for the advice, the competition makes sense. I guess I’ll be busy this spring digging trees 😁
 

Ohmy222

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yeah, don't do it. I did this too a while back. Pretty certain it is the lack of sunlight that kills when you chop and then leave. It would be fine if the tree is in a place that gets light. Also, with Hornbeams I would chop very high or at a branch as they die back quite a bit. They are easy to collect and have live but are annoying the way they can die back or just abandon the trunk and throw out some suckers. Never collected Beech but heard they are difficult. I did cut back some elms and tupelo at the same time and they would normally throw out new growth but I may have been lucky.
 

19Mateo83

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yeah, don't do it. I did this too a while back. Pretty certain it is the lack of sunlight that kills when you chop and then leave. It would be fine if the tree is in a place that gets light. Also, with Hornbeams I would chop very high or at a branch as they die back quite a bit. They are easy to collect and have live but are annoying the way they can die back or just abandon the trunk and throw out some suckers. Never collected Beech but heard they are difficult. I did cut back some elms and tupelo at the same time and they would normally throw out new growth but I may have been lucky.
They are growing in an area with a really high canopy, not too much smaller growth around them, just tall oaks.I may do one or two and see how they respond. There’s tons of material there to experiment with.
 

Ngidm

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...asking for a friend...

Is light/root space the only (or primary) concern for chopping something and leaving it in the ground? Y'all have far more experience and savvy than me, but it seems like IF this was a tree without much light competition around it, that would be a great way to let it recover and set some primary branches. And also not do too much work at one time. Sure, it would send out some long internodes (and fast in the Spring), but if... Say hypothetically... It was an accessible deciduous tree, and one could wire it as those new branches start to thicken (and thin out the additional branches to remove the possibility of future reverse taper), it would be a sweet way to save a season or two.

I guess, what I mean to say, is that I have a friend who has a tree in the open in his back yard and he might (in theory) want to trunk chop it in late winter and since it is in his back yard he could remove/rub off many branches and wire the needed ones and he might be hoping to get some thickening of those branches in the first season. Then he could dig it up the following Spring. If he wanted to. Hypothetically, of course.

Can someone enlighten me to how this is a bad idea? Like would the growth be to coarse? Better to chop in midsummer and then dig a year and a half later so there's not gazillions of stored carbs creating coarse growth?

If there's a good link to any information or "general game plan" someone wants to share on early deciduous development, that might be more effective in enlightening me-y --er -- friend, he/I would be interested to hear it.

Sorry to commandeer the thread, but it seemed appropriate to talk about the continuum of accessibility and the ideal circumstances of trunk chop development.

Thanks, as always, for so much insight!

N
 

Eckhoffw

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In the right setting, I would Think it could be advantageous to chop and leave in the ground.
Like others have stated, it must get plenty of light, and therefore not be surrounded by trees. I’ve done this in a small wooded area on buckthorn. The threes I dug in spring faired much better than the limbless stumps I left behind for the growing season.
 

Ohmy222

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i think if the tree is in the open then a slow approach would work better. Most collected deciduous species in the eastern US are in forest/shady locations already.
 

Joe Dupre'

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Very very bad idea. I did this 20 years ago when I began collecting, thinking it would give me a head start.

It does the opposite. Trees growing in the woods are in close competition with their neighbors. When you chop the trunk on a hornbeam mostly you just weaken it and allow its neighbors to over or out grow it. Chopped trunks left undug usually die, in my experience. Hornbeam can be collected "all at once" with dramatic trunk and root reduction (up to 95 percent root reduction or even more)
That's been my experience with most species, too. Although, I've done a couple on the edge of a woodlot that got a lot of sun that did ok. Still, chopping and collecting all at once is the way to go.
 

Ngidm

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Interesting! Is it because in the simultaneous chop/potting you're reducing a lot of the stored energy, i.e..intentionally NOT leaving the branches to thicken quickly, so that they're more in proportion? Or am I missing the point?

Thanks! (For my friend...)

N
 

Joe Dupre'

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My hunch is the reduced light by leaving it in the ground gradually weakens it. Also, if you chop and collect the tree, presumably it will be getting pampered.....the right amounts of water, fertilizer, air and light.
 

Joe Dupre'

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The "light" thing: I collect a lot of material from brutally cut roadsides. No matter how much the trees are massacred, they sprout back, I think, because of the abundance of light in the open areas.
 
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Very very bad idea. I did this 20 years ago when I began collecting, thinking it would give me a head start.

It does the opposite. Trees growing in the woods are in close competition with their neighbors. When you chop the trunk on a hornbeam mostly you just weaken it and allow its neighbors to over or out grow it. Chopped trunks left undug usually die, in my experience. Hornbeam can be collected "all at once" with dramatic trunk and root reduction (up to 95 percent root reduction or even more)
I agree here, especially hornbeams. I’ve had better luck with beech, but they’re just as easy to collect and reduce all at once.
 

Shibui

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I guess, what I mean to say, is that I have a friend who has a tree in the open in his back yard and he might (in theory) want to trunk chop it in late winter and since it is in his back yard he could remove/rub off many branches and wire the needed ones and he might be hoping to get some thickening of those branches in the first season. Then he could dig it up the following Spring. If he wanted to. Hypothetically, of course.
Chop a trunk in the ground with little competition is OK. Wiring branches of trees in ground is not a good idea. Trees grow and thicken so fast in the ground that wire is swallowed real quick.
With that warning, only use wire if you think you can monitor and remove wire in time

Also remember that nebari and root ramification is an important part of bonsai. Chopping in situ will not address root improvement.
I have certainly had much better results with developing shape and taper in pots after collection.
 

sorce

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Perhaps we shouldn't be thinking in terms of "competition".

Perhaps we should be thinking in terms of "cooperation".

If, as selfish humans, we follow backwards world theory, we may find the answer by sticking our heads in the sand.

There, we may find the answer.

That it is not the overground competition we see that keeps these trees from living, but their underground cooperation that keeps this tree suppressed so that others may live.

Trees are not like us.

I'd bet there is no concensus because we don't have all the necessary information to come to one.

Knowing what the surrounding trees are would probably allow this concensus.

Sorce
 

rockm

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The "light" thing: I collect a lot of material from brutally cut roadsides. No matter how much the trees are massacred, they sprout back, I think, because of the abundance of light in the open areas.
Of course that's a primary reason. Trees in the woods compete for light, resources. Removing the portion of the tree that uses competes for light sets the tree back. It can't compete any longer. Trees growing at the edges of woods have better access to light.
 
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