The day I realized I was topping trees wrong for 15 years

I had this big red oak at a house in Arlington last spring, maybe 50 feet tall with some dead limbs near the top. I climbed up there ready to do my usual topping cut, but the homeowner came out and said his neighbor's tree split after a storm because of a bad topping job. That got me thinking about how I always just cut straight across the top without considering the branch collar or leaving a proper stub. I started looking closer at old cuts I made and saw a bunch of rot setting in where I left stubs too short. So I spent a whole weekend watching videos from a certified arborist in Oregon who broke down the 3-cut method and proper reduction cuts. Now I always leave a longer stub tilted away from the collar, and I haven't had a single call back about decay in 8 months. Has anyone else switched their topping technique after years of doing it the wrong way?

3 comments

3 Comments

iris_burns14d ago

That's pretty wild how long we can go doing something wrong without even knowing it. Your story with the neighbor's tree split is exactly the kind of wake-up call that sticks with you. Same thing happened to me about two years back when I took down a branch on my own maple and left it flush. Few months later the whole limb started oozing sap and rotting right where I cut. A buddy who works with trees showed me that same 3-cut method and told me to always leave that little collar. Now I look at all my old cuts around the yard and cringe at what I did before. Makes you wonder how many trees out there are suffering from that bad technique.

the_richard11d ago

Actually there's a bigger issue nobody's talking about - the time of year you prune matters just as much as the cut itself. I took down a big oak limb in late spring a few years back and even though I used the perfect cut, the tree still got oak wilt because the sap was flowing and beetles showed up same day. Late fall or winter is way safer for most trees since they're dormant and the bugs aren't active.

brooke48414d agoMost Upvoted

Actually, you don't want to leave the collar itself - that's the swelling where the branch meets the trunk, and cutting it off damages the tree's natural defense zone. The trick is to cut just outside the collar (like a 45 degree angle away from it) so the tree can seal the wound properly on its own.