Hello,
I was at a National Trust property in the UK yesterday and saw the cut-off trunks of a multistem tree with these white plastic plugs in.
Are they to protect it in some way, keeping bacteria out of the place where it might grow new branches later? Are they to prevent it growing new branches? Are they measuring something? Are they marking the tree somehow? Are they like cannulation sites, to be removed so medicine or nutrition can be added through the holes?
(Those were the guesses my family and I came up with).
Any ideas?
by Stripes_the_cat
2 Comments
You’ve got no answers, so I’ll venture a guess.
Someone either wants to rot the stump, or produce mushrooms, so they’ve introduced fungal spores or mycelia to a drilled out hole, and plugged the holes with these. Wax is typically used, but I could see these plugs coming with a kit or something.
They also sell systemic insecticide capsules.
drill a hole put in a plastic capsule, bang it in with a hammer, and it cracks the capsule so that the tree can take up the insecticide.