Do trees feel pain?

I promise this is not a vegetarian bashing post. We are both a livestock farmer and trying to grow a diversified orchard here in southern british columbia, Canada. I have been pruning and grafting all my life without thinking about this question in any real depth. Recently I started reading about the work of Dr. Suzanne Simard who after over three decades of research has shown that trees in the forest are communicating and sharing resources. In my own experience of spending more and more time in the forest, especially in the last 5 years I feel that trees are conscious beings. However I still don't think that pruning or taking scion wood causes a tree to feel pain, but I have heard many people say this. There is a lot of anthropomorphizing happening on both sides of this argument. Some scientist say that trees cant feel pain because they do not have a nervous system like us and that they can not run away as a result of pain. That in itself is assuming trees are individual beings like us and in order to feel they must have similar system to us. This argument undermines the interconnectedness of the forest as a conscious being.
I am curious what your take is on this issue? How do you feel about pruning, grafting, tapping, cutting mushroom logs, harvesting willow for basket weaving, etc. etc. If we believe that trees are or are part of a conscious being that can feel their environment, what are the implication of that? Do we need reciprocity in our relationship with trees?
Lets see if we can have a respectful, honest and deep discussion about this.

I have done a fair amount of teaching in fields and forest. I take people out to show them things, they may have never seen before. I watch them as we walk along. And it is surprising how often folks break off branches that are in their way. Or grab a hand full of leaves and strip them from a tree. Or maybe just bend some tall grass over as their hands trail at their sides. They mostly don't seem to do those things maliciously. Most of the time they don't seem to give it a thought at all.

So, often, we'll stop, and I'll ask them if they would like someone walking by them and just casually rip out a hand full of their hair? They usually reply, that very rarely would they like that. I ask them if they would like being kicked, or have firewood broken against their side, or nails pounded into themselves so someone could build a treehouse. No, mostly not.

Then, maybe we'll sit down and I'll talk with them about the Woods. There is so much to learn, if you just become still. If you watch. Or Listen. There is so much going on around you, that you entirely miss as you bumble along talking loudly, staring at the ground so to be sure of your next step, being impolite to trees and grass by pinching and pulling them. Listen, and you'll hear the birds talk with each other. Maybe feel a slight wind as deer pass by. Or learn about bending with the storm. Or standing tall and strong when others might want you to fall.

The world, all the world, wants to talk with you. It wants to carry you and help you and teach you and learn from you and so much more. But you need to pay attention.

So to the question of "Do trees feel pain?" For me, I don't think so, not like we do. I'm quite certain they feel loss. Are aware of abuse. Are most especially knowing that there passes another uncaring, thoughtless being. I don't believe there is a pain like animals feel pain, or thoughts as we form thoughts. But there is certainly a knowing of thoughtlessness. And awareness of intent. And maybe even a sort of glow that comes of connection and care. The sharing of life in all life's forms and ways.

I don’t think they do. Pruning plants are most often to prevent disease and branches breaking. If you don’t prune, eventually the tree will start to loose branches naturally, and it often leaves larger holes giving access for diseases to fester. I see pruning as clipping nails or hair.
As for giving back. We give back when we die. Natural burial or cremation will feed the plants. It’s the circle of life. Everyone die at some point, no matter where you are on the food chain. I feel good about ending up as fertilizer and/or food for those that has nourished me all of my life.
I believe in treating everything and everyone in the ecosystem with respect. We are after all the stewards and caretakersof this planet. We should not, just take and take, but protect, nurture, feed and cultivate our trees and everything else.

I think they can feel us.     I like to hug the trees and sit with them.  

Lots of people get a healing effect from being in the forest.   Maybe it is just the oxygen and the electromagnetic and grounding effects but I think there is more to it than that.  
It feels good to be with them.  
When I am stressed out, I have a place at the base of one of my big trees that I sit.  I have been sitting there on and off for years.   I always feel better as soon as I sit down and lean against my tree.

I read the Secret Life of Plants when I was a kid.  
It is full of experiments of putting monitors on plant leaves and the plants react to stimulus.  

I would love to try some of that stuff.  

The question is if trees respond to pain, and I think that is a difficult question.  What if a tree is in pain in its natural state, and pruning helps learn the pain?  Could we tell?

Someone might look at cutting toenails, and assume that it hurts a person.  Could an onlooker really tell?

I recently read the book The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger. This well researched book makes a case for many plants to be at least conscious communicating individuals who can express joy and stress (pain?) to other plants through the air and through the soil.

I consider myself an animist, so I think everything has a type of consciousness or spirit, and even inanimate things are part of a larger system that feels in some capacity.  I don't like the idea of inflicting pain, but I also look at it like this: everything I do in this life, simply by existing, is affecting everything else in good ways and bad.  And in order to continue existing, I'm going to have to deliberately inflict pain on some part of the system to meet my needs.  And, as part of that system, I'm going to have to accept pain being inflicted on me for others to meet their needs (like bacteria festering in a cut, for example, or even losing my garden to wildlife--they need to eat, even if it means less for me).  

I don't have to like it, it is what it is, but inflicting pain is inescapable.  I'm going to have to do it no matter what in order to survive because I'm part of that larger system.  I can choose what I'm comfortable with (and I'm comfortable with a lot; I eat meat and would still have a woodburning stove if it were up to me), but I also think it's my responsibility to only take what I need (ideally to thrive, but in some cases just to survive).  Here in the developed world, we're very divorced from the pain we're inflicting (and also the joy we create and receive), so it's a little easier to ignore it most of the time.

Sometimes people start to get what I see as overly-mindful and obsess about leaving no footprint, and they end up inflicting more pain (on themselves and others) than they would have if they'd've just eaten the damn honey or pulled the damn weed (and this isn't me throwing shade at any one lifestyle or belief system, it's about people not staying in their lane/ eschewing self-awareness in order to feel morally pure & therefor superior).

Anyway, I love trees and I even have one in my woods that talks to me (it creaks and squeaks and it's been doing it for like 15 years at this point, so I assume it's healthy and not just a limb that was about to fall off).  I don't think they experience things the way humans or even the animal kingdom as a whole does, but I believe they're capable of having experiences, learning, and passing knowledge to other beings.

(Sorry for getting so off topic, but every time I've seen this come up elsewhere, it inevitably leads to people questioning if it's right to hurt trees/ plants/ ecosystems, and then others getting ugly and defensive about it, and I know that doesn't happen here because we have rules and moderation and generally people are more respectful, but I just wanted to add my 2c anyway)