Scarred Tree

While Mike is beginning to break into the forest for this year of logging, a tree was felled that had been holding a secret high up in the branches.

Once the tree was on the ground and he began to cut off the long branches of the crown of the tree, he found deep scarring that had occurred between three to five years ago. The tree has been protecting the deep scar with sap. It has oozed over the injury that tore the barn clean off the tree and into the cambium layer.

The scarring was about 40 feet from the base of the tree. The sap had hardened a protective barrier that is up to a couple of inches thick in spots and had oozed about twelve feet down the tree.

From the area that the tree had been growing and showing no damage to the large limbs that were on all sides of the tree, we could conclude that the injury was not made by any other trees swaying in the wind or falling against the tree.

Looks like our local bears had picked this tree to sit high above the forest floor to scratch at the tree to get to the sweet sap. It could have been a single event or several days of marring the tree to produce enough to satisfy the one who damaged this tree before moving on deeper into the forest.

Although the damage does reduce the value of this tree for timber, the base will still make a good log and the top of the tree will make another one or two. Where the scar is the deepest it will take away from the value and diminish the scale (amount of board feet) that the tree can produce.