old plum tree - bough split away - help!

[johnfr]

We have an ancient Pond's Seedling that has just suffered a bough collapse, I started to cut it out in a panic and think I might have made a mistake, now I don't know what to do for the best. Any advice would be welcomed.

The collpsed bough is 2.5" diameter trending slightly above horizontal and has split away from the 3" vertical trunk but is still substantially attached. It collapsed down onto a lower branch which held it up. In a panic I started to lighten it by cutting away nearly all the foliage with a view to cutting away the bough completely. However with the foliage removed the bough sprang upward and is now self supporting. It is now an 8' length with only a few sprigs of foliage remaining. Cutting away the foliage has left a big 'hole' in the side of the tree.

Can anyone advise if it would be o.k. to leave the bough alone now in the hope that it will recover and regrow? Or would it be best for the tree to cut the bough away completely?

I have a love hate relationship with this tree. Love the way that it provides masses of fruit with little attention but hate the rotting squelching wasp infested mess under the tree each autumn!

John

[FB.]

I would remove the broken branch, but only far enough to get rid of the splintered wood. An open wound (especially in the form of a split) on a plum or cherry tree is just asking to get infected and could eventually allow disease to reach the trunk - at which point the tree can't be saved.
Besides; the branch may well break under the weight of fruit in subsequent years.
The hole in the canopy will close up with shoots from nearby branches in a year or two. The broken branch may also try to re-grow itself over the next couple of years - the sap flow to that part of the tree will be substantial, so the nearby branches will draw on that extra sap and probably grow more vigorously next year.
Early next spring, some clever pruning of nearby branches could hasten the closing of the gap, by encouraging growth in the desired direction.

[johnfr]

This is almost a split 'fork' in the tree situation!

Thanks for taking time out to give the advice, I appreciate this. I can see from your reply that I did not explain the situation clearly in my post. The problem is that the split is not on the collapsed bough itself but at the point where the collapsed bough joins the upright 'tree trunk'. It is almost a split 'fork' in the tree situation. As I detailed in the post the vertical 'tree trunk' is only slightly more substantial than the horizontal collapsed bough with the result that for a couple of inches the 'tree trunk' is almost split in two - hence my panic. If it was for the best I could cut through the 'tree trunk' below the split but I would end up removing about one third of the whole tree with this scenario (there are two other major vertical 'trunks' springing from below the split ). I have never been faced with tree surgery decisions as major as this before - hence my anxiety.

[RedThorn]

I would remove below the split as you would still have 2 major verticals. It might be a case of cruel to save the tree. Welcome to the vine by the way

[johnfr]

How should I treat the stump?

Thanks for this advice RedThorn. I shall do this but it will be hard to see so much being lost from this venerable specimen. It was part of the orchard of a large country house that was later developed over with many of the trees retained in back gardens. It is well over 50 years old for certain and could be a centurian.

Can someone advise if it would help to give any treatment to the stump of this tree when I cut through the trunk? Is a square cut best or an angled one to encourage rain to run off like the top of a fence post?

[TonyF]

WEe had this a couple of years ago with a plum tree that's probably 20 years old, we inherited it when we bought the house.

It split twice at the same time, from the centre outwards, sort of fan shaped so for the past two years it's been supported with wooden stakes and posts and this year has produced tens of kilos of fruit.

We have left it this long to prune it for some of the leaders to grow from the centre, inside of the split and now we have some decent growth there, we're going to prune the split branches off - and the cuts will be sloping, away from the centre of the main stem so that water can't sit in the bowl any more than will gather naturally.

[johnfr]

Amazing recovery of heavily pruned tree

I took the advice of RedThorn and cut below the split upright trunk but when I got up the tree it was worse than I thought. The collapsed bough had apparently hit another major branch hard as it fell causing another major split in a v fork higher in the tree. This had also split a major upright clean in two for about a foot. So thinking 'I've started so I'll finish' I cut this away below the split also. This left a very usightly looking tree with almost a half cut away from one side leaving just an exposed upright stump with one solitary growing branch on it.
I did this cutting away just over a week ago but something remarkable has happened in that time. The 'good' section of the tree has swung over some 3-4 feet at the top and 'centred' itself, also some branches have swung over to the cut away side so as to now obscure the cut stump. The appearance of the tree is amazingly transformed for the better. I just hope that this does not indicate an unhealthy instability in the tree.
John

[Jeanied]

John was the cut away wood sound or diseased? If it was sound it should all be ok