It was more windy than usual in the Vinton area the past few days, and with the wind came what tree experts have been warning Vinton residents about: More storm-damaged limbs.
"Much of what we’re seeing come down in the strong winds that our area experienced in the last couple of days are limbs and branches that were broken off during the wind storm on July 11, and were hung up or caught in the tree," said Mark Pingenot, a rural Vinton resident and field manager for Trees Forever. "They are commonly called 'hangers' or 'widow makers' and having these start to come down are a reminder to us that the full impacts of the July wind storm to our trees will not fully be known for many years to come."
Pingenot said area residents are likely to see such branches fall, unless the damaged trees are pruned, for a couple more years.
"It is important to remember that the wind event we’ve experienced has been a significant stress to all of the trees and that while some damage may be obvious, there is a lot of damage and stress on our remaining trees that is difficult to see without a trained eye. That damage may not even begin to show up for a long period of time," said Pingenot. "Trees that appear to have structurally handled the wind well may have lost a significant portion of their canopy (leaves), or I’ve seen several cases where what appears to be a healthy younger tree has had the trunk twisted enough so that the bark has popped loose, causing what in time will be a fatal injury to that tree."
There are many specific ways a wind-damage tree could be affected, said Pingenot.
Trees that are or were leaning have had damage to the root system, which also takes time and energy to correct that the tree may not have to expend. Also, the stress of soil compaction from our storm clean up and construction activities have a long term impact on a trees that is often not seen for several years. In instances where limbs have been broken off high in the canopy and it’s difficult and not often practical to attempt to “clean up the wound” those jagged breaks and long tears are difficult for the tree to seal the wound off; allowing the slow process of decay to get a foot hold in the tree.
He advises residents to look closely at their trees for hanging branches, splits/cracks in the trunk, and to make corrective “clean” cuts where feasible to best allow the tree to seal off the wounds their tree has sustained, minimize clean up and construction traffic over the root system (especially in wet soil conditions), talk with a professional arborist if they are concerned and plan to replant over time.
Choosing what to replant should be done by allowing the sun, shade, soil, moisture and utility conditions of a site narrow down the choices of what could be put there, said Pingenot.
"Don’t be afraid to plant something that you haven’t had before. We have to learn the lessons that Dutch Elm disease and the threat of Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) have taught us; which is that entire communities dominated by a small number of species are subject to future catastrophic loss in the presence of pests and diseases. Eleven years ago the problem of EAB didn’t exist, and if we assume that EAB will take out the ash in Iowa, our towns will be made up of predominantly maple species and there are maple pests in the world that we don’t yet have in abundance here."
The first 3 rules of urban forestry, says Pingenot are:
1) plant for diversity
2) plant for diversity and
3) plant for diversity.
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