Ring Barking Pine trees - How do you do it?

Hi Selous,

To successfully ringbark a pine tree you need to remove all the lower branches and shoots around the base, and then chop through all the bark and underlying soft material until you get to the hard "wood" of the tree. The width of bark removal, from experience seems to be between 500 mm to 1 m . We do 1 m just for good measure. The tree still can take up to 3 years to die, we have found this particularly with those in riverbeds with a good water supply. I have attached some pics for reference.









Even when felling smaller trees we have found that ringbarking the stump prevents shoots and multiple stem trees re-growing




And yes it is a good arm workout!

Hi Selous, the extract below is from the trip report of VE's pine chopping trip which was done in November last year:

intrepid wrote: We also will be compiling some documentation on the pine trees and how to go about chopping them. In the picture below on the left you can see how we are showing that you have to remove the phloem, cambium and as much of the soft wood as possible (the bush knife is slicing it off). The phloem is important for the tree to create it's nutrients - removing this is what ring-barking is all about. This normally kills a large tree effectively, though we have noticed that some Berg pines still take a long time to die this way. Those next to, or in streams may even need more persuasion. If you revisit a ring-barked pine the next day, you can sometimes see resin oozing over the ring-barked section, this is the trees attempt at preserving itself. On the right you can see the finished product. Note how we have cut branches away as much as possible. Not only is this needed sometimes in order to work properly, but it also is done so that the ring-barked section is exposed to the sun and to fire more, which all helps in harming the tree. This particular tree is at the Makhulumane Forest, which can be seen lower down on the right.

We will still be compiling some proper documentation on how to tackle the pines. Unfortunately the cable car proposal has taken up a lot of time. It is also very important to mention that ring-barking and cutting down pines within the MDP-WHS must be done in co-operation with KZN Wildlife. Consultation with the relevant Conservation Manager (Officer in Charge) should be done before anything is undertaken, and a report afterwards should also be done. The waypoint of the tree should be recorded with a GPS, and photos should also be taken. VE has a very good relationship with EKZNW in this regard, and we are in the process of establishing standard ways of going about this. EKZNW does add our GPS data to their database. We can assist in communicating with relevant OICs if you are heading out there and intending to take out some pines. Even you communicate with them directly yourself, please do let me know too and send me the GPS and photographs, since these are also sent to relevant people at EKZNW head-office at QEP.