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Question: Fire-burned orange tree
The question I'm about to do is a bit strange, but unfortunately the crime is successful and I can't do anything about it. The worker who was in charge of burning the dry twig in my garden lit the fire too close to an orange tree and the poor plant remained with part of the bark of the burned and detached trunk. When I noticed it it was already too late. However the tree has lost its bark on about half of the trunk and from a height ranging from 3 to 30 cm from the ground. The question is this: what should I do? Do I just have to break down the plant or wait for it to dry by itself or is there a way to save it? I had thought of putting putty on the wound. P.S. However, white and unburned wood came out from under the detached bark.
Thanks.
Answer: Fire-burned orange tree
Dear Antonella,
the bark is the outermost part of the tree, it is as if it were its coat, which protects it from external agents; if the fire has only and exclusively ruined the bark, leaving the underlying wood clear and healthy, you need not worry, because your plant has not suffered very serious damage. Now, though, wood exposed to light is an easy door for all kinds of parasites, both fungi and insects.
For this reason, as you suggest, it is the case to cover the parts of live wood exposed to the air and to the sun; in these cases a special putty is used; the mastic for pruning consists of a waxy and adhesive material, in practice it is vinyl glue, to which a dye is added, so as to shield the wood even from excessively intense sunlight; the putty usually also contains an antifungal product, in order to kill any spores that have already settled on the wood, and to drive out those that want to penetrate from the outside.
It often happened to me to see on the market also mastics for pruning completely without fungicide, if you find only this type of mastic, before applying it, prepare a mixture of water and fungicide and brush it on the wood, even on the edges of the remaining bark; or when you go to the nursery to buy mastic, look for one on which it is specified that it also contains some fungicide.
If you want you can prepare the mastic on its own, using the common vinyl glue, mixed with a broad spectrum fungicide, in general just the Bordeaux mixture or cupric salts.
