Helping trees to die

[mtarbert]

I have a 5 ac woodlot that my wife calls our backyard. She insists the only trees to be cut are ones that are dead or dying. Question. ..Is there a herbacide that can be poured around the base that will help them along ? I don't wqant something that will get into the wood and cause problems while the wood is burnrd.
Thanks guys,
Mike

 

[Intheswamp]

I have a 5 ac woodlot that my wife calls our backyard. She insists the only trees to be cut are ones that are dead or dying. Question. ..Is there a herbacide that can be poured around the base that will help them along ? I don't wqant something that will get into the wood and cause problems while the wood is burnrd.
Thanks guys,
Mike

Call Auburn University.

 

[Kenster]

I would think any chemicals you put in the ground are going to do a lot more damage than just killing your tree. Five acres ought to give you plenty of choice for standing dead or dying, or storm damaged trees. If I really had to hasten the death of a tree I'd not use chemicals but would try something like girdling it, perhaps.
We have 3 and a half acres of heavy woods on our 12 acres of land. I'm like your wife. I will never drop a healthy tree. If I can't' get enough dead and down wood out of my own woods I'll scrounge the rest. And I have developed sources that will provide more wood than I can ever burn in several lifetimes.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Tell her that you are practicing good woodlot management. Cleaning out the junk opens it up for the good stuff.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

If it's not been cut over in quite a while, then as solar'nwood suggests, there's a lot of live trees that could be cut just to make the others grow well. Overcrowding at the edge, leaners, etc can really make lots of other trees struggle.

 

[jhoff310]

fire up the saw and cut about a 2-4" deep kerf all the way around the tree about 2' up from the ground. Cutting up the water supply to the top..should take much more than a year or 2

Jeff

 

[shawneyboy]

Get some copper nails, Drive one in, tree dies in a year or so.

Good woodlot management does involve removing damaged and at times mature declining trees, this allows the younger ones to eat their spinach and grow up big and strong.

Shawn

 

[billb3]

Agent Orange worked well.

Your future kids, pets and a few wildlife creatures might suffer a few minor genetic deformities but heck, it's easier than convincing a wife of what need be.




I wish I could suggest a forestry management for dummies book, I certainly could have used one years ago.


You can thin quite a bit and actually do more good than harm if done wisely.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Tell her that you are practicing good woodlot management. Cleaning out the junk opens it up for the good stuff.

This ^^^ try to convince her that good woodlot management can actually help the more healthy trees to grow better and prosper.


Otherwise, there are contact herbicides known as "brush killer" that you can spray onto live foliage. This will only kill what it touches. If you could get that sprayed on a good portion of the tree, it should kill it. But in a woods, it's going to be tough to get it on a lot of the tree without getting it on other trees as well.

I would NOT use any type of soil applied herbicide without extreme caution because residuals can reek havoc on your woodlot for years. Chemicals aren't toys to be played with.

Story time: One time dad got an old chemical tank to cut open and use as an animal shelter for some of the goats. It had the residue of a milky-white chemical in it. We weren't positive what it was, but figured that if it was diluted enough it wouldn't cause any problems. We sprayed the inside of the tank out, and filled the tank with water, the drove along the lane dumping it in the edge of the field. For the last 15 years NOTHING will grow in the 4 foot wide, 300 foot long strip where we dumped that chemical. We still don't know what it was, but learned an important lesson. Now, before you judge and think, "stupid hick that just dumps chemicals out all over", my dad and I both hold Restricted Use Pesticide Applicator Licenses, and dilution and dispersion is a very common, and accepted practice for cleaning chemical tanks. The problem is that we didn't know what the chemical was so we had no idea how much to dilute and disperse the chemical. We just assumed that since the tank came from a farm supply co-op that it was a common agricultural chemical and "normal" dilution would be acceptable and dispersing it onto ag fields wouldn't be a problem.

So going back to chemicals... they aren't to be used off label. Don't take the advice of jim-bob the neighbor when he says to just go get XYZ and pour it around the tree. Try the best you can to avoid the chemical approach and use it only as a last resort.

 

[WhitePine]

http://www.naturalresources.umd.edu/EducationalWBY.html

http://www.naturalresources.umd.edu/index.html

As a bonus, they are in your backyard, so to speak.

 

[Dieselhead]

i heard the same about the copper nail trick.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I have a 5 ac woodlot that my wife calls our backyard. She insists the only trees to be cut are ones that are dead or dying. Question. ..Is there a herbacide that can be poured around the base that will help them along ? I don't wqant something that will get into the wood and cause problems while the wood is burnrd.
Thanks guys,
Mike

Mike, you have a good woman there. She has my vote too. Cut the 5 acre woodlot and then wish you had some trees....

This is one of the things that drive me nuts. I've seen over and over and over where someone will either build a new house or just buy one already standing. One of the first things they do is cut the trees down! The second thing they do is go to the nursery to buy some trees to plant in their yard.....

I see this at a place very close to our place. Lady moved in and could not cut down this beautiful row of pine trees fast enough. Even hired someone with a chipper to remove the stumps. In the very same year she also hired a local nursery to come in and plant.....trees......right where the older trees were. These older trees were by no means old either and they were beautiful.

Later she hired me to remove another tree that was closer to the house....but on the west side so it provided nice shade during the summer months. It was located so that the shade was mostly over the living room area and part of the kitchen area. Okay. I took it down and cleaned up the mess. The wood made a nice fire or two because it was maple. Now, she has said to me a few times just how much hotter our summers are getting from what they used to be. She is a bit older so spends lots of time sitting along that west wall watching tv in the afternoon. Yes, the summers do get hotter....when you have no shade.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

They may help slow air infiltration by providing a wind break in the winter as well (evergreens). Just not too close in fire prone areas- that's the other side of that story. People move to areas out west and leave trees up close thinking they're in nature, only to get burned out.

 

[WhitePine]

They may help slow air infiltration by providing a wind break in the winter as well (evergreens). Just not too close in fire prone areas- that's the other side of that story. People move to areas out west and leave trees up close thinking they're in nature, only to get burned out.

They also work as noise breaks.

 

[chinkapin_oak]

Like has been mentioned, you need to inform her of a thing called TSI - timber stand improvement. You need to clean out the poor quality timber so that the good stuff can thrive.

http://www.fnr.purdue.edu/inwood/timber stand improvement.htm

 

[Intheswamp]

+1000 what you said below, Dennis. It just makes me shake my head when I go to a large city and see a new housing development going up. First thing is cut every tree in site...then plant little wisps of trees. Huh?...can't those equipment operators dodge at least a few trees????...I'm sure they could but it's not in the plans....the "scorched earth" plan.

For years here in dead center of our little southern town we had four pecan trees that had been there well before I was born (1957). These trees made pecans *every* year....and had only 4 square feet each of uncovered soil to grow out of...how they got the moisture who knows? They made a shady area and good pecans in the fall. One morning when I arrived early to work the "city" had all four trees laying on the ground and bucking them up for the FELs to load in the dump trucks. No public discussion, nothing...just whack'em down. Twelve years later they go into a "downtown revitalization" frenzy (I'm at ground zero in the center of town). One thing they harp on is getting some GREEN areas downtown....say what? So now we have some cement monstrosities that basically stretch for three city blocks on either side of main street with some kind of ivy (cousin of kudzu?) growing in them...and some bushes at a couple of the corners. Oh, and we just got a $24,000 clock, too,...grant money....I can't blame the city for spending the money but the folks that dole it out need a brain-scan. Sorry for the rambling....

I'm like you and Mike's wife....if I can, I'll find somewhere else to cut rather than on my property...unless it's a tree that needs to go.

Ed

Mike, you have a good woman there. She has my vote too. Cut the 5 acre woodlot and then wish you had some trees....

This is one of the things that drive me nuts. I've seen over and over and over where someone will either build a new house or just buy one already standing. One of the first things they do is cut the trees down! The second thing they do is go to the nursery to buy some trees to plant in their yard.....

I see this at a place very close to our place. Lady moved in and could not cut down this beautiful row of pine trees fast enough. Even hired someone with a chipper to remove the stumps. In the very same year she also hired a local nursery to come in and plant.....trees......right where the older trees were. These older trees were by no means old either and they were beautiful.

Later she hired me to remove another tree that was closer to the house....but on the west side so it provided nice shade during the summer months. It was located so that the shade was mostly over the living room area and part of the kitchen area. Okay. I took it down and cleaned up the mess. The wood made a nice fire or two because it was maple. Now, she has said to me a few times just how much hotter our summers are getting from what they used to be. She is a bit older so spends lots of time sitting along that west wall watching tv in the afternoon. Yes, the summers do get hotter....when you have no shade.

 

[iceisasolid]

I have a 5 ac woodlot that my wife calls our backyard. She insists the only trees to be cut are ones that are dead or dying. Question. ..Is there a herbacide that can be poured around the base that will help them along ? I don't wqant something that will get into the wood and cause problems while the wood is burnrd.
Thanks guys,
Mike

Call Auburn University.

How about planting a large grove Hybrid Poplars and harvest them in 5 years? And then continue doing this practice yearly? They run about $1 per sapling in Idaho and grow fast. One application is for wood harvesting.

 

[mainstation]

Why in the hell would you deliberately pour a chemical designed to kill into the ground when you are just gonna start the chainsaw later on and cut the tree down??
Really?

 

[Intheswamp]

Why in the hell would you deliberately pour a chemical designed to kill into the ground when you are just gonna start the chainsaw later on and cut the tree down??
Really?

I know why. I think you know why. And Mike knows why. Sounds to me like Mike and his wife need to work some things out other than cutting or not cutting trees.

My earlier reference to Auburn University was a bit of sarcasm, in case you missed it. A situation with poisoning some oaks trees involved a genuine nut-case there and what the low-life did has united Auburn University and the University of Alabama like nothing I've ever seen down here...not to say that they're all lovey-dovey, but they're definitely unified in regards to this dumbdonkey's stupidity and what he did. Here's an article about it...just think Mike, if you did what that guy did and if your wife found out you might be looked upon by her as most of the upright folks in Alabama are looking at Updyke....after getting out of jail ($50k bond) he's already had his tires slashed in a Walmart parking lot and last I heard he was living out of his car "beside a creek"(after a friend put asked him to leave his house).

"Toomer's Corner Oak Trees"

Honesty is the best policy...always has been and always will be, The truth has a way of coming to light.
Ed

 

[mtarbert]

OK...OK....OK.....I have some 2-4D and some 2-4T....I will try mixing up a concentrated solution and applying by slow drip around the base of the trees.
Thanks,
Mike

 

[Intheswamp]

OK...OK....OK.....I have some 2-4D and some 2-4T....I will try mixing up a concentrated solution and applying by slow drip around the base of the trees.
Thanks,
Mike

:-/

 

[RowCropRenegade]

My great grandpa always warned me of taking the bark off the lower part of the tree with the weed eater. He said his fore fathers chipped the lower 30 inches of the tree bark off the bot of the tree. Then hand planted around the trees. Eventually we end up today with nice, well drained and tree free fields. If only the fore fathers could see it today... Your wife may not notice the bark missing as much as chemically poisoning it....

I do chemical application on about 8000 acres of various crops a year. I'd avoid the chemical route in a residential setting. Ag setting/commerical, absolutely use chemicals.

Chemical wise, Cross bow will easily burn off foliage of the tree and kill smaller trees. You can spray cross bow in small amounts on your yard to kill clover. Spraying a tree results in big time off target application. (your yard below the tree being off target) = dead yard.

Tordon would be my choice. Take a small handsaw and slice a few slits in the tree. Apply a squirt of tordon in it. Use it on small trees after I cut them off or use the backhoe to maul them. It goes 20 ft into the ground and helps accelerate the rotting process (my opinion).

24D Ester or Amine really smells so every neighbor will know that you sprayed. Ester volatilizes also, which means dead flowers.

 

[mesuno]

It sounds like you need to educate your wife on forestry management, not deceive her by surreptitiously killing off the trees!

Proper management of woodland actually leads to improved woodland health, biodiversity and tree vigor. We have recently taken possession of 12.5acres of woodland which has been neglected for around 30 years and the neglect shows as lost habitat, lost species diversity, excessive shading of the forest floor and extensive stool death through out the areas of hazel coppice. Part of our management plan is working to restore habitat for dormice which need hazel coppice cut on a regular 5 year or shorter cycle.

Woodland needs managing to maintain vigor (unless you are talking about pristine natural forest which has never been managed or felled - very rare these days).

That said, the size of woodland you describe is probably only just sufficient for sustainable production of firewood; you'll probably still need to do some scrounging.

Mike

 

[raybonz]

Call Dr. Jack Kevorkian I'm sure he can help that tree croak lol..

Ray

 

[firefighterjake]

I guess I would just let things run their normal course and continue to cut the dead wood. . . but also attempt to educate the wife about how thinning a forest and using selective cutting can actually be quite beneficial as long as one goes about it the right way.