Tree Pruning. Reduction Vs. Thinning. Arborist Advice

[Music] hi I'm Angela with Romeo tree service and today we have this branch on this mesquite tree that's coming down too low and what I'd like to show is the benefits of doing reduction cuts as opposed to thinning cuts reduction cuts are when you cut a leader back to a branch and thinning cuts are when you take a branch off of a leader thinning causes length while reduction makes strength so in lifting this branch up rather than taking off the branches that are coming off the leader which would be thinning cuts rather than taking those off because they appear to be the problem instead we're gonna take leaders back to take weight off of this limb and thereby raising it up so getting started here's the example of whether or not I'm gonna make a reduction cut or thinning cut we're going to make reduction cuts in order to avoid thinning cuts in this particular case this leader has these three branches if I take any one of these three branches that's a thinning cut we want to avoid thinning cuts because thinning cuts cause fast growing lengths the key words are fast and length because faster growing wood is weaker wood and length causes leverage bad combination so instead we want to make reduction cuts which is taking a leader back to a branch this is a nice example we can make this cut right here and it would take it back to this branch we can make this cut right here take it back to this branch or we can make this cut right here take it back to this branch the first cut I'm going to make is the one that takes off the least material well it looks like I want to take a little bit more so I'm going to go back a little further and make this reduction touch and you want to try with reduction cuts to take the leader back to a branch that is at least one-third the diameter of the leader you're removing whereas if you were to make these thinning cuts taking the branches off of a leader that causes fast growing length and weakness when you make reduction cuts like this that causes the leader new leader if you will that remains to get thicker and stronger rather than longer so it can be said that re while reduction causes strength like this will that thinning removing those branches would cause length and weakness I'll keep on making this pruning I can probably go a little higher I'll make this reduction cut I'm not doing the 3 cut method because I have good control over holding the branch ok start to move back and we'll I'll keep on making those reduction cuts we'll see what happens does this limb even spread out canopy that still gives shade but it's functional and hopefully higher than the wall because after I make all those reduction cuts taking away that leverage in that way we're hoping that this entire branch will have so much weight taken off it and leverage that it raises up and hopefully goes above the wall so I'm going to click on making some of these cuts but do see [Music] so you can see that by making reduction cuts it takes away leverage and weight that raises this limb up so rather than making thinning cuts taking branches off of leaders rather than making those thinning cuts of the branches that appear to be the problem we take away the heavier and branches that have more leverage which takes away more weight and leverage and raises this piece up by being able to reduce this back and raising it up we have salvaged we have been able to maintain this branch and not simply take it out at its base now taking it out at its base we want to avoid because that would be a thinning cut because this is a branch off of this leader making this thinning cut of this entire branch would cause more fast growing lengths out to the leader that remains so we try to avoid thinning cuts and make reduction cuts so remember reduction causes strength while thinning causes length thanks for watching you can learn more about trimming your mesquite and Palo Verde trees at our website Romeo tree service com click on the product page and there is our DVD which is downloadable as well to get more information thank you [Music]

Channel: Romeo Tree Service, LLC.

Views: 11,341

Rating: 4.9548874 out of 5

Keywords: Tree pruning, Mesquites, How to, Reduction, Thinning, Tree trimming, Palo Verdes, tree service, arborist

Id: QfbVLM-Zask

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 19 2018