Injuries come in many flavors, but the damage they wreak is the same.
Everything under the sun, including the sun, takes a toll on trees regardless of age, size, genus or species. It could be anything from a cute energetic squirrel in a park to an equally cute and equally energetic 8-year-old with a hatchet in a campground.
Trees operate as a closed system, injuries to their stem is an open court for infection, and if the injury that opened that sealed system remains open long enough, decay WILL set up shop, and do its thing.
Most, if not all, municipal specs for new planting plans include something like “free from stem injuries” or something similar. Good nurseries do everything in their power to prevent stem injuries as they realize it will be very difficult to sell a tree with an open stem injury.
Weed wacker “blight” is a particularly bad one, as it usually takes place at ground level and usually when the tree is relatively small.
Our soil and soil conditions here in the valley are ripe with a myriad of decay causing organisms just waiting for the opportunity to find a way into your tree’s sealed system.
No competent arborist will use climbing spurs on a tree not slated for removal, as these leave a set of injuries with every step!
Stem injuries can be from bacterial infections, fungal colonization, mechanical impacts from golf balls to Mack trucks, solar exposure, constant wind blast, sprinklers, sapsuckers, taxi doors, gophers, stupidly excessive numbers of buck antlers (failed domestic policy), bike parking, fly-by-night tree services, those ridiculous hard plastic stake ties that some evil person invented to be used on just about every new job I see, the list goes on and I’ll bet you can think of a few more before you finish reading this sentence…
The worst thing about stem injuries is, there is NO fix or remedy except time. Not time to heal, mind you, but time to seal! You may have to do something to shield the sun from the newly formed woundwood that will form, but do not attempt to paint or wrap the injury, just keep it dry and cool and keep your fingers crossed!
The injury from whatever factor caused the injury in the first place will remain with that tree for the rest of its life, the faster the injury closes, the faster it seals the stem from decay. When you plant a new tree, for God’s sake put a trunk guard on the stem! The black plastic guards Plant Oregon uses are the best thing going. These guards work like a champ and WILL protect your beloved new tree from everything from horny bucks to numbnuts with string trimmers. Leave these guards on, until the tree outgrows them. At about 4’’ or so in diameter is when most deer start to ignore your tree with hormonal rage, and by then, the canopy shadow should protect the stem from the hellball (sun) in the sky…
Here comes a beautiful spring!
As always, plant high and often…
