The unkindest cut of all

With the monsoon in the offing, intense tree-pruning exercises are being carried out across the city and its outskirts. A close look at what can happen to trees whose wounds are left unattended

The countdown for the north-east monsoon having begun, local-body administrations must be on a tree-pruning spree. The blow has to be dealt. The cuts serve a larger good. The unkindest cut of all however is to walk away without binding the “wounds”.

“When trees are pruned and the cut sections are not covered properly till the wounds heal, the door is being left open for borers to enter. The cut sections would have to be covered with wax or some kind of a sheet that prevents water from entering and creating holes that would give these borers, which are larvae of certain insects, a foothold. From there, a lot of things can happen. Repeated borer infestations can weaken a tree and cause it to fall. These trees can dry up or die,” says D Narasimhan, member of the Tamil Nadu Biodiversity Board.

As the process of decay happens unnoticed over a lengthy passage of time, the plague afflicting trees with branches exposed from pruning goes unaddressed.