Go big or go home!

I was reworking the callus edge of the chop scars on the tree above when I discovered something a bit troublesome… a boat load of punky wood. I was surprised because this wound had been healing so nicely and was on a more vertical part of the trunk so should have been shedding water well. Any way, I removed as much of the punky wood as possible and applied wood hardener.
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Ideally, I would have filled the void with epoxy putty but didn’t have enough… but I did have some acrylic stucco repair/patch in a tub. Let’s see how this works🙂.
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Do you plan to carve off the callous bark or just let it grow and hope it eventually fixes itself?
 
Do you plan to carve off the callous bark or just let it grow and hope it eventually fixes itself?
My plan is to leave it alone until it heals. I may gently rub off some of the rough bark around the scar but don’t anticipate any further carving here. The wound is on the back of the tree fwiw.
 
This one may go into a wooden box this spring as I've decided to let things run almost everywhere in the canopy except the very top of the apex. All the branching needs to both thicken up and extend at least 50%. I'm hoping the last section of trunk will finally thicken enough that I can lose the sacrifice branch in 1-2 years.
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Please pardon the ghetto wiring job... it is what it is 🤷‍♂️.
 
This one went back into the same pot, but I’ll let it run this year. Still debating on whether to keep the apex as is and hope the sacrificial branch finally fattens that section up enough or just chop lower. I started a thread graft an inch or so below the blue tape and will let it and the older sacrificial branch run for a few years and see what we get. I keep telling myself “it’s the journey“🤷🏼‍♂️😬
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This one went back into the same pot, but I’ll let it run this year. Still debating on whether to keep the apex as is and hope the sacrificial branch finally fattens that section up enough or just chop lower. I started a thread graft an inch or so below the blue tape and will let it and the older sacrificial branch run for a few years and see what we get. I keep telling myself “it’s the journey“🤷🏼‍♂️😬
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Just wondering what blue tape is for?
 
When a chop scar stalls despite vigorous growth, look for rotten wood… 😩. Welp… at least it’s on the back of the tree. Let’s see if I can make that hole a bit smaller before the trunk rots out 😬. In short, all the punky wood was scraped out, lots of wood hardener was applied to all the nooks , crannies, and exposed wood, acrylic stucco patch was used to fill the cavity, allowed to cure for 24 hours, the callus edge was scraped and then sealed. Let’s see what we have this August 🤷🏼‍♂️
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The wood hardener slows the rot and the stucco provides a base for callus to roll on to and hopefully close the wound. Only the complete wound closure will stop the rot. Callus won’t grow onto soft wood🤷🏼‍♂️. I used Duct Seal to cover the nicked callus which will help it roll further.
 
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