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Why does nobody talk about pruning sealant making things worse
I finally got a client in Portland to skip the black goop after 3 years of arguing about it, and her maple is already pushing better callus wood this spring. Sealant traps moisture and rot right against the cut instead of letting the tree wall off the wound on its own, which is why the paint just hides decay for a couple years. I started noticing it on my own job sites, cuts that got painted always seemed to rot out faster than the ones I left bare. The research backs it up too, but nobody wants to hear it when grandpa always painted his cuts. Has anyone else had a client actually come around on this, or do you just let the paint can sit in the truck?
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the_oliver1d ago
Worth knowing that the sealant itself isn't really the problem, it's what it's made of. The old tar based stuff traps water and rot, but the newer water based types actually let the wood breathe a bit, so the blanket "all sealant is bad" thing isn't fully true. The bigger issue is people painting cuts that never needed it in the first place, like small ones the tree can close on its own.
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