Learning From Failure No 1

This failure is very instructive. In the storm over the weekend this Beech suffered catastrophic failure. The main stem had grown into two co-dominant leaders. The leader to the leeward side has split out, but look at the union… 109 cm width and only 9cm of structural connection! Also compounding the weakness is decayed central sapwood and a large wound from a previous failure leaving no structural connection to the east elevation, confirming my opinion that old major fracture or pruning wounds at a union introduces a substantial point of weakness and greatly increases the likelihood of failure.

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