Storm Damage Question

[mtholton]

I've got a younger tree that was leaning heavily. I tried to straighten it with what I had, and I went back to try to fix it up a bit better, but this past week we had a few storms and it partially snapped. I don't have a picture of it once snapped. It bent over heavily about 2/3 of the way up on the central leader and cracked the bark and is "snapped", but still perhaps 50% intact?. Is it salvable with a splint? Do I cut it at that spot and hope something else grows out?

 

[chickenlittle]

I’d prune below and let it regrow. If it was leaning because of how it’s rooted, I’d stake it. If just how it grew and got too top heavy, I’d skip the staking.

 

[b116757]

I’ve got some trees on dwarfing rootstock that is crap for anchorage and have driven a t-post very deeply in the ground next to the trunk and one is tied off to it using rope that I have to replace every few years the other one I pulled back over post storm past vertical with the tractor and drove the t-post released the tree to rest against the t-post depending on how long the tree lives post my repair it may eventually grow around the t-post. That tree has some keepsake grafted to it that I wanted to save so I cut everything else off leaving the keepsake I’m allowing a root sucker that’s growing nice and straight up to grow and in a year or two I’ll graft the keepsake to that trunk and remove the original red delicious completely.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I’d prune below and let it regrow.

mtholton -

I'd follow what Chickenlittle suggests in this quote above.

We had a couple trees broken by snow load, bear, wind - who knows. But I did as Chickenlittle suggested in the above quote, and the trees grew new shoots, limbs - and they're looking good to this day.