Arboriculture () is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants. The science of arboriculture studies how these plants grow and respond to cultural practices and to their environment. The practice of arboriculture includes cultural techniques such as selection, planting, training, fertilization, pest and pathogen control, pruning, shaping, and removal.
Overview
A person who practices or studies arboriculture can be termed an arborist or an arboriculturist. A tree surgeon is more typically someone who is trained in the physical maintenance and manipulation of trees and therefore more a part of the arboriculture process rather than an arborist. Risk management, legal issues, and aesthetic considerations have come to play prominent roles in the practice of arboriculture. Businesses often need to hire arboriculturists to complete "tree hazard surveys" and generally manage the trees on-site to fulfill occupational safety and health obligations.
Arboriculture is primarily focused on individual woody plants and trees maintained for permanent landscape and amenity purposes, usually in gardens, parks or other populated settings, by arborists, for the enjoyment, protection, and benefit of people.
Arboricultural matters are also considered to be within the practice of urban forestry yet the clear and separate divisions are not distinct or discreet.
Tree Benefits
Tree benefits are the economic, ecological, social and aesthetic use, function purpose, or services of a tree (or group of trees), in its situational context in the landscape.
Environmental tree benefits
Erosion control and soil retention
Improved water infiltration and percolation
Protection from exposure: windbreak, shade, impact from hail/rainfall
Humidification of the air
Food for decomposers, consumers, and pollinators
Soil health: organic matter accumulation from leaf litter and root exudates (symbiotic microbes)
Ecological habitat
Modulates environmental conditions in a given microclimate: shields wind, humidifies, provides shade
Carbon sequestration
Oxygen production
Increased biodiversity
Social tree benefits:
Employment: forestry, education, tourism
Run-off and flood control (e.g. bioswales, plantings on slopes)
Erosion control
Air purification
Aesthetic beauty: parks, gatherings, social events, tourism, senses (fragrance, visual), focal point
add character and prestige to the landscape
can anchor a landscape design
creates a “natural” feel
Climate control (e.g shade): can reduce energy consumption of buildings
Privacy and protection: from noise, wind
Attracting pollinators
History: eg. memorials for a loved one
Medical benefits: eg. Taxus chemotherapy
Materials: wood for building, paper pulp
Fodder for livestock
Property value: trees can increase by 10-20%
Increases the amount of time customers will spend in a mall, strip mall, shopping district
Carbon capture
Tree Defects
A tree defect is any feature, condition, or deformity of a tree that indicates weak structure or instability that could contribute to tree failure.
Common types of tree defects:
Codominant stems: two or more stems that grow upward from a single point of origin and compete with one another.
common with decurrent growth habits
occurs in excurrent trees only after the leader is killed and multiple leaders compete for dominance
Included bark: bark is incorporated in the joint between two limbs, creating a weak attachment
occurs in branch unions with a high attachment angle (i.e. v-shaped unions) common in many columnar/fastigiate growing deciduous trees
Dead, diseased, or broken branches:
woundwood cannot grow over stubs or dead branches to seal off decay
symptoms/signs of disease: e.g. oozing through the bark, sunken areas in the bark, and bark with abnormal patterns or colours, stunted new growth, discolouration of the foliage
Cracks
longitudinal cracks result from interior decay, bark rips/tears, or torsion from wind load transverse cracks result from buckled wood, often caused by unnatural loading on branches, such as lion's tailing. Seams: bark edges meet at a crack or wound Ribs: bulges, indicating interior cracks
Cavity and hollows: sunken or open areas wherein a tree has suffered injury followed by decay. Further indications include: fungal fruiting structures, insect or animal nests.