Cutting Burls from Trees


2013dbusko

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I recently spotted a nice maple burl on some land that my friend owns. The burl is probably about 15 inches in diameter. He said I could cut the burl off as long as it doesn't kill the tree. Does anyone know if cutting the burl would lead to any negative consequences for the tree?

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Yeah, you can't do that and say with any certainty that the tree won't die...at least depending on the size of the burl.  If it's smaller, then you might be able to get away with it...but then you just have a small burl as your reward and you still risk killing the tree.  If it's a bigger one then the reward is greater but so is the risk.  When you prune a big branch off a mature tree, you always cut it off outside of the collar, which helps prevent disease from entering the trunk.  But burls grow directly off the trunk so it's a much more susceptible wound.  Think about it like the difference between removing a wart from someone's butt cheek and removing a tumor that's right next to someone's spine.

 

If you do decide to hack it off, do some research on when the best time of year will be.  There's some debate over when is best to prune a maple because they're bleeders, and this may or may not be detrimental to the tree.  They bleed most in late winter and early spring.  However, this is when wounds heal fastest and there is the least risk of infection or insect infestation.  They bleed the least in the fall, but they heal the slowest at that time.

 

A 15" diameter wound is a substantial one.  I'd be very reluctant to hack that off a buddy's tree unless he really didn't care about it at all...and even then I still probably wouldn't do it because why risk the whole tree for one measly burl?  Go look for dead or dying trees on his property, and see if you can find a burl on one of them.  Just not worth it, IMO. 

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How big is the tree?  It's pretty hard to kill a Maple tree, but I'd wait a while after the leaves have all fallen, so the tree won't bleed much.

 

copied and pasted: "Maple, Birch, Dogwood, and Elms are known as "bleeders". When these species are pruned in late winter or early spring, the wounds bleed. This flow of sap is more unsightly than damaging to the tree. Pruning these trees could be delayed to midsummer. When delayed until summer, one can readily detect which trees need pruning or thinning. The one time when trees should not be pruned is during early spring when buds are breaking and during leaf expansion."

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Ask him about it, if the tree dying is not an option, why risk it? There are always more out there

I mostly harvest mine off of dead/dying trees when maintaining the woods behind my house and I like to help out cutting when trees fall down nearby, most often they are happy to let me keep a bunch of wood and if there are any burls I grab those too.

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  • 2 months later...

Wait till the leaves are off then after cutting the burl away paint the cut with a latex paint with some listerene mixed in. An old tree surgeon showed me this while he was removing an "unsightlty" burl on a home owners property. I have done it about 6 times over the last five years and all the patients are alive and well.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was always told as a kid to cut pine in fall, but others in the spring.  The idea being the sap/nutrients running up would seal the hole/wound faster, and cutting it in the fall would just invite bugs in as they tried to follow the food down the trunk.

 

But I've never tried to harvest the burl off a living tree, just branches that needed to come off.  How often do you guys come across burls?  I can think of only two that I've seen locally.

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