Hot take: I stopped mulching my pruning cuts and the trees did better

I used to slather pruning sealer on every cut I made, thinking I was protecting the tree like my old foreman in Syracuse taught me back in 2016. Last spring I ran a test on six maples in a client's yard, sealed three cuts and left three bare, and by August the sealed ones had more decay and callus trouble than the untreated ones. Turns out that goopy stuff traps moisture and actually feeds fungus instead of keeping it out. The bare cuts closed over cleaner and faster, which stung a little since I'd been doing it wrong for years. Anyone else ditch the wound dressing, or am I the only one who had to learn this the hard way?