OK.
In this video, I'm going to assume
you want to prune a branch off.
You may have any reason for pruning that branch off.
And really, there are few biological reasons for the tree
to take off a branch.
But a branch might be in your way,
it might be in the way of your driveway or your sidewalk,
or it might be broken or diseased
and you want to remove it.
So there's two things you look for on the branch.
You look for the branch bark ridge
and you look for the branch collar.
And you can see swelling right here.
It's not real evident at the bottom of this branch,
but on the sides, it is.
And that's part of the branch bark--
or the branch collar.
Sometimes, you'll see wrinkles on the bottom of the branch
here.
And that's, again, part of the branch collar.
And then the branch bark ridge is an accumulation of bark
that happens in the crotch of the branch between the branch
and the trunk.
It'll also happen-- you can see a branch bark ridge here coming
from this branch.
And it'll happen where a branch meets a branch, as well.
So it's not just where a branch meets the trunk.
The idea then is to remove as much of this branch
as possible, not leaving a stub, but not making a flush cut that
would be way down here.
You want to leave the branch collar and the branch bark
ridge on the tree and take everything else.
And so a good cut here would probably end up--
I'll have to make the decisions as I make the cut,
but something like that.
It's leaving the swollen base of the branch, which
is the branch collar; leaving the branch bark ridge.
This branch collar is actually-- the swelling is actually
an accumulation of trunk tissues.
Trees have growth rings, and you get
growth rings added every year.
Trunk tissues go past this branch,
and branch tissues go out into the branch.
Where they meet, you get this swelling.
So you're going to leave everything on the tree
from here down.
A flush cut would be like this, and that's an old-fashioned way
to cut that has been found to actually cause
extra wounding, extra dieback, and physical problems
inside the tree.
So we're going to actually cut off a smaller branch here.
And we've got the branch bark ridge.
We've got the branch collar, the swelling at the base.
We'll make our cut right about here.
And that does leave a bump on the tree, but it's not a stub.
A stub would be anywhere from here out.
When you remove a branch that has much weight on it,
especially in the spring when bark gets loose,
you want to do a three-part cut, where you undercut the branch.
Now this is small enough, I have pretty good control of it.
And then you make a second cut either straight
down into that cut or a little bit outside it.
We'll go a little bit outside.
What happens is it'll break, but it
won't strip bark down the branch that can then strip the trunk.
We've probably all seen branches where that happened.
Just out of curiosity, this looks like this branch
is about 12 years old.
OK.
So then I've got the weight off, and I can make the final cut.
You can see how a bow saw here would
be hard to get in where I need to to make this accurate cut.
If you're ever unsure, cut a little less off
than you think you might need.
You can always make another cut, but you can't put anything back
on the tree.
And that's actually a good cut.
It's maybe an 1/8 inch out here, but I'm not worried about that.
What will happen then is this next summer,
a callus or wound wood will form where
the cambium is right here, where the bark meets the wood.
And it'll form kind of a roll and eventually cover that up.
And a roll is what you want.
If you get arcs of wound wood forming
with none at the top and the bottom,
then you made to flush a cut.
But this will be good.