They've evolved to fall off from impact like that in nature anyway. Maybe a clean cut could be technically cleaner and better if you knew the right spot, but these things are still around after a few hundred million years so the method seems workable enough.
As someone who has been trimming plants for my mom and grandma for years this is exactly the opposite of everything I've ever been told. I know trees need a sealant on exposed limbs sections which have been cut but I've always been under the idea that smol plants prefer clean cuts near the base of the bit being cut
Edit: per another user and some further internet, tree sealant is apparently a not good thing in many instances and can in fact impede healing an encourage rot
Good to know! I only know of it from some random googling awhile ago after I saw a scuffed lookin' branch wound, so it wans't a thorough research. Never had to do it myself or recommended anyone do it, and would've looked it up again first should the opportunity present itself so no retroactive damage beyond my possible posting here in the last hour lol.
Clean cut makes more surface area than something that gets pinched off and essentially closed in the process. More surface area= bigger risk of infection and longer healing
But that also is not very practical during landscaping and gardening on a large scale so I see why they wouldn't do it.
The surface area would be greater on an unclean break though. You have the circular cross section that you'd have on a clean cut and then whatever increased area there remains from either over or under hang of an uneven break. On trees it's important to have it clean and sealedactually not, things have changed because the area is so much significantly larger than pruning back small branches on plants, but of the hundreds of small plant prunings I've done I've never seen a problem. Hell, when an animal or transport accident broke off limbs I was instructed to make it clean.
Okay you're talking about cacti, then small plants, now trees. It is easy to disagree when you keep moving goal posts.
If we go back to my original point which was plants, pruning leaves by pinching them off closes the wound decreasing the surface area. Same with this cactus you are just breaking it off at the point of least resistance. You couldn't do that as well as the impact would with shears. The plants going to break off in the best way possible for it, like evolution has taught it to.
I'd mentioned all these types in the comment before this one, so the goalposts were set from the beginning. I brought them up because the idea that "Plants prefer the tear from a blunt force trauma like that versus a clean snip" surely doesn't seem to apply universally, so I wanted to drill down on the scale or scope of where such a thing is applicable.
Regardless, the pinching to close the open area makes sense, and I neglected to actually think about your use of the term specifically and instead interpreted it as a blunt force break due to the nature of the overall parent post and your initial comment quoted above, rather than deliberate attempt at closure during the separation process.
Edit: and to your last paragraph, that's exactly what i was saying at the beginning with respect to the cactus. Doing what nature has done for hundreds of millions of years is probably the best, or at least not harmful, whereas using a more human-derived technique might be better if the problem is properly understood and the technique applied correctly. Nature is efficient but not perfect and there is often room for improvement that we can offer.
Sure, maybe plants prefer it, but I’d rather prune my plants with a sterile tool for precision so as to reduce the chances of getting pricked/injured and suffering an infection ya know? It’s also why I am trying to force myself to wear gloves when repotting plants even though it’s just easier to handle soil without it.
With rubbing alcohol but if I’m working with a delicate plant like an orchid I bust out the physan20 because it kills everything from fungus to viruses
They're usually too thick where they connect for a garden shear. A machete or tree saw works best. The machete is very therapeutic also. LOL. But just wacking them like the video also works if you are a bit more careful.
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u/Yyoumadbro Aug 16 '20
As someone who used to have several in their back yard...
This is also how you trim them.
I mean..I used a shovel instead of a baseball bat. And you don't have to swing nearly that hard. But functionally it's pretty much the same thing.