Intravenous fertilization of trees

Was wondering if anyone has intravenously fertilized their tree(s) and what were your results? For those who are not familiar with this process it involves drilling tree and injecting the nutrient/fertilizer into the tree. Curious what's everyone's comfort level with such procedure? Please advise your thoughts.

Mike Ziecik : I hope I am wrong but, alarm bells went off as soon as I read your article. there are unscrupulous people who pass themselves of as Tree Surgeons
Who go out and find a home that shows a lot of maintenance issues the homeowner has not gotten to, and big trees out in the yard ! If a senior Citizen answers
their knock at the door, they are told several Trees in the yard are dying but the Tree Surgeon can save it on the spot for-$$$ (whatever they think they can get
away with)! This is usually an 'injection through the Bark ' or a special root feeding or both, since I heard of this scam 50+ years ago this could be a new wrinkle!

After the injection the 'Tree Surgeon' retires to a bar to drink up his ill-gotten gains, remembering to come back and try again, the ultimate goal is to get paid to
take the tree(s) down whether they need to come down or not !

A variation on this scam is after a windstorm goes through an area the 'Tree Surgeon' does the 'shot' thing saying that 'if this does not work, I will take the price of
the injection off of the cost of taking the tree down', One 'Tree Surgeon' can lock up months of work, by getting there first and getting a few jobs in the neighborhood,
and then promising discounts "as I am already here''

I hope that you are talking about something else, but 'Tree Surgeons, Roofers will 50 year Guarantees, and driveway sealers are all too common scam artists! A.L.

I agree with Allen. At best, this sounds like a dubious method, if not just an out and out scam.

A tree, if it was really dieing from malnutrition, would probably be better served with a foliar spray, or a good soil drenching with a liquid feed. Drilling holes does not sound like it would be any benefit to the tree - it would be a vector for disease/pests to enter. The injection would need to be very precise in order to get any nutrients into the tree's transport system, and (like any other injection) an overdose could be fatal. To get enough nutrients distributed throughout the tree to be useful, would probably take an overdose. Trees are designed to get their nutrients through their root system. Best to go with Mother Nature's way.

If it is a deciduous tree, it is probably dormant at this time. Whatever was injected, would not get circulated through the system until the tree breaks dormancy. By then, the nutrients probably would be ineffective. Just sitting in one spot for a prolonged time would probably be more harmful to the tree than beneficial.

Bad Idea! First off, nothing has to be injected into a tree. Surprisingly, leaves are quite good at absorbing nutrients and I've done this myself with positive results. I had chesnuts with obvious iron defiency that I treated with a soluble iron spray. I simply made 0.5% Ferrous ammonium sulfate in water and sprayed it on the leaves. Actually, the first time I tried, not much happened. I then added a drop of dishsoap to act as a surfactant, and that made all the difference. Within three days of spraying, leaves started greening up, with spray patterns showing on the leaves in the form of green spots.

Secondly, wounding of any kind is likely to introduce pathogens that can start an infection. This is how beetles spread Dutch Elm disease. They'd carry the fungus from tree to tree as they punched holes through the bark. The fungus does not naturally transfer itself from tree to tree. It much have a carrier.

Here is a good write up about it.
http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Injections.pdf