Fill hole in tree stump? What is this on the branches - Disease?

Hello nature fans!

I have a question about an apple tree. The tree is not doing too good, even though it almost was dead a few years ago and it did somewhat recover ever since I have the free running chicken around.

Today I've seen a chicken eating out of the hole of the tree stump and I wonder if somehow (in a natural way) I can help the tree by closing/filling this hole. Any ideas?

Also I wonder what kind of disease the tree has, or if it's some kind of a pest. I'm not at all planning on applying anything which is not in the natural line, but would be curious to know if I can somehow support it...

stuff in limbs look like some type of web worm in the hole will be some kind of grub
cut the stuff out of limbs and burn or kill any way you would like and pick any worms off tree and smash
the hole I don"t know what would be best
some type of liquid that would seal and prevent further damage
that is probably prior damage by lawn mower or something similar
that has exposed the heart of the tree .
normally the tree will close a small injury with sap but this was to big for it to do so.

Thank you.
Probably the nets/worms are only there, because the tree is weak from this hole to begin with...

Let's see if anybody has a good idea about how to fill the hole.

While I wait if anybody has an idea, I just keep on firing some BioChar - can't hurt

Basti : Any Silviculturist will tell you that you never will achieve a watertight seal at the bark, and without that you are trapping water within the rotten cavity -

This is what happened with the other experiment ! Best is to let the cavity breath, and possibly channel water running down the tree away from your trees opening.

If you have any other Apple ,or Cherry or Crabapple or other native Cherry Family trees look them over carefully for more tent caterpillars, These are the caterpillars
Favorite foods ! As with all of these nests there is a queen inside who must be destroyed While the workers are the ones eating the leaves they are short lived and
sexless so it is not as important to get everyone of them !

Edited to remove uninformed opinion A.L

It is unlikely you can save this tree though its death may be years away ! If you decide to remove this tree consider UP-Cycling it by offering the interesting bits
to a Woodcarver or Wooden bowl maker !

It is likely they will offer to cut the tree down and cut it up into pieces if they get 1st pick on the interesting bits ! ( It is possible this tree is totally hollow and is nothing
but a shell) consider the so called rotten bits as a Starter culture for a Hugelbed !

For the Good of the Craft ! Big AL

hau Basti, Allen is correct about that tree being doomed. However, Apple trees will grow back from a stump (that's why pollarding works on them) so if you want to try and "save" that tree, you would need to cut it down so it will grow back from the stump.
Apple wood has many uses including lumber for furniture and of course smoking meats. It will also make a good hugel addition but that should be for already rotting apple wood, not any of the sound wood in the tree.
If you decide to give saving the tree a go, be sure to use a sloping cut so water will not penetrate, I would recommend using a coating of Elmer's Glue on the heart wood but not on the growing, cambium layers or bark, that will give the tree stump the best chance of growing.

When the stump sprouts, there will be many sucker branches, choose the strongest one that has a good attachment crotch and remove the rest of them just outside of the collar, that way the cut will heal over quickly.
As the new leader grows, you can stake it so it will grow upright, then it will begin branching and it will form a decent new tree.

Basti : And I like every thing Bryant RedHawk says !

You did not Post a location~ see link below :


https://permies.com/t/43625/introductions/Universal

In this case it becomes important for us to know your location as in some places their lands are entering a local dry spell and Pollarding or Coppicing
is best done during a wet period ~ For the Good of the Crafts ! Big AL

hey there

I ve been wondering about the same problem,
recently I bought a book: "the grafters handbook" in which was described the technique of bridgegrafting which I found very interesting, f ex you could poissbly clean up the wound on the bottom and top of the wound and thus bypass the deceased bit with small pieces of wood from the same species, given the cambium layers are matched up to one another ( don t know how easy that is with such an established bark )
in time these bridges might swell and start to overlap and thus close the hole.
I like the id of it but I have never seen it in practise
so if you would sacrifice the tree you might as well give this a try
ok as I was writing this I thought why not have a look on youtube and then I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f9u0gdxxLM

have a nice day

Hey guys. That's a bunch of information. Thank you!

This tree and I myself are located in Germany (did update the profile too).
If I could how I wanted, I would be in the Hill Country in Texas where my friends would welcome me - but the all controlling government wanted to see me gone, unless I invest big $$$ for a business. Damn corporate world - but am working in this direction too out of necessity, while I am fascinated with living soil/permaculture, where I see the real use!

If I cut the tree down to the stump, should this be just above ground or as high as possible, as long as the damaged part is gone? In my case it might very well be right above ground, since the damaged part is pretty low...

Bridge grafting would in this particular instance, be pretty iffy at best.
With as much of the supporting heart wood missing as appears in the photos, you would end up with a hollow tree surrounded by living bark.
This looks pretty but it is hiding the weakness within and the first strong winds to hit it would stress the grafted bark areas to the breaking point.

Bridge grafts are very useful but not really suited to trees that are missing the main support of the heart wood.
Bridge grafts are more for repairing bark tears from machinery, before the rot has set in.

Basti Hess wrote:Hey guys. That's a bunch of information. Thank you!

This tree and I myself are located in Germany (did update the profile too).
If I could how I wanted, I would be in the Hill Country in Texas where my friends would welcome me - but the all controlling government wanted to see me gone, unless I invest big $$$ for a business. Damn corporate world - but am working in this direction too out of necessity, while I am fascinated with living soil/permaculture, where I see the real use!

If I cut the tree down to the stump, should this be just above ground or as high as possible, as long as the damaged part is gone? In my case it might very well be right above ground, since the damaged part is pretty low...

I would leave as much of the trunk as possible above ground. The idea is to leave enough for a decent base.
There is another option, cut the tree off, let the suckers grow then cut a sucker for rooting.
If you go this method, you will actually be replacing the damaged tree with a new, clone tree.
Let me know which method you choose and I will be happy to go into details for you to follow.
If you don't want it public here, just purple mooseage me and I'll respond.
(I am going to be using the clone method on one of my own Pear trees this year)

hey briant

I have seen many trees in my days with rotten heartwood which are still standing for many many years, of course it is not ideal but hey if you get another 10 or 15 years out of your tree then why not ?
and I think a trunk like that is not really going to sway to the point that the graft is going get damaged ? and as I see it bamboo does not have any interior but still has amazing strength, possibly due to the cylindrical shape hence the id of the bridge graft to recreate that shape ?? then again I have no practical experience with it, just wondering

Bryant RedHawk wrote:
Let me know which method you choose and I will be happy to go into details for you to follow.
If you don't want it public here, just purple mooseage me and I'll respond.
(I am going to be using the clone method on one of my own Pear trees this year)

The cloning, I would really be interested in. I'd appreciate some details! In the public is perfect, so everybody can gain.

While I think about it, there are a couple of pear treas in my area where I would love to get a clone of.

Also, I have a pear tree here, where I don't like the pears (hard, no flavor), so grafting one or two different kinds to it would actually also be great. So get the good information coming, am looking forward to it! Maybe you even want to open a new topic for it, so the information will be easy to find in the future...?

Grafting is plenty new for me, but I just now realize the opportunities!
What would we in the "natural" way use to close the openings from grafting? Wax?

Bottom line: I think I cut this damaged tree down and see if it shoots again. I'd love to try this bridge crafting, but I guess there is just too much damage in the trunk - and this will call for trouble later on! At the same time I will make a couple of clones and after I did gather the necessary information, I will graft some additional kinds of pars to my existing pear tree! Can't wait!

Bamboo derives its strength from cellular structure. The hollows are divided by nodes which are solid This along with the silica cellular structures make a culm of bamboo a stick of many chambers, it is a member of the grass family.

Fruit trees are all about the food they provide, not just standing there, fruits have quite a lot of weight to them.
Yes trees will live a long time even though they are rotten in the core, but when high speed winds come along, those trees will fail and in many cases they do structural damage to either other trees or houses, depending on their size, type and location.
High winds are winds that are moving at 40+ miles per hour, I have fruit trees that bend almost 45 degrees in winds like that, which would be enough to fell that tree when the fruit is nearly ripe and at its heaviest. And speaking of fruit weight, I have treated trees that had branches broken from the weight of the fruit they were bearing. People do not always pluck the fruit down to an amount that a branch can support. Most apple tree branches can support around 3-4 fully ripe apples, when you look at a root branch (from the actual trunk) and then add up each arms fruit weight, you can have a pressure of 600 lbs. sq. in. or more at the base of a root branch, if the tree was properly plucked down at fruit set. Many trees actually do the first survival drop themselves. but it is up to the orchardist to know when to remove more for the health of the tree.
It is always best to look at the purpose then finding the best solution comes easier to the mind.

Specialty grafting is wonderful, bridge grafts were developed to repair trees who had their bark ripped off during heavy machinery use around them or a girdling mistake (as in "No I didn't want that tree killed").
Bridge grafts can be used for this purpose but you also have to take more than just the cambium layers and bark to properly graft a tree with the damage shown. In this apple tree's case, it would take a minimum of three full wood grafts to help the tree with some support and you would also need to use some epoxy to hold the non living heart wood together.

allen lumley wrote:
If you have any other Apple ,or Cherry or Crabapple or other native Cherry Family trees look them over carefully for more tent caterpillars, These are the caterpillars
Favorite foods ! As with all of these nests there is a queen inside who must be destroyed While the workers are the ones eating the leaves they are short lived and
sexless so it is not as important to get everyone of them !

Umm, you sure about this? Tent caterpillars are the larval form of a moth. There's no queen caterpillar. Each individual is fully capable of turning into a sexually active moth.

I will say having wild cherries on my property helps....they go nuts for the stuff and it seems to keep them interested enough that my other trees are spared. Almost a perfect trap crop for the little guys.

Agree with not sealing the hole though. It won't fix the problem, and if anything it will accelerate it.

Blake Wheeler : You are right and I was wrong, I was definitely guilty of repeating an Old Daddys Tale as the gospel I heard it as !

A little research shows exactly what you stated The Tent Caterpillars are the larva stage of moths (I got that Right) All caterpillars are male or female- no Queen !

Early spring mornings they form irregular shaped masses to share body heat until it warms enough for them to forage -this I was told was analogous to the ball of
workers around the (nonexistent) Queen

Let me see if I can redeem myself, At 6 weeks they pupate and hatch about now (July) as male and female moths, after the female mates she lays eggs and dies !

The egg clusters lie hidden, looking like little dried up spit balls or a darkish bit of plastic foam !

While you may not have had any Tent caterpillar tents for a couple of years in a row stress on the Trap Trees will cause the Caterpillers to shift to the other Cherry/
Apple trees in the area -yours !

See link below for discretion of the egg clusters !


http://tent-caterpillar.com/3-eastern-tent-caterpillar.htm

And thanks again for finding and correcting my error ! Big AL

Oh, believe me, if they decide to go for my fruit trees I'll be ready and waiting lol. I can't begin to count how many of those little guys I massacred in my younger days :p