Bark peel

tkroeker

Seedling
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Topeka, Kansas
I cant seem to get the bark to grow over the cuts when I make them. I assume its because Im not using paste. I had heard not to but this definitely is not how to do it.
 

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Paste helps increase callus growth a little but the main ingredients for cuts healing is time and growth. Healing requires the tree to grow new layers of wood. They only do that quick when they are allowed to grow hard and fast. Keep pruning, don't feed, small pots, etc and healing cuts takes forever. Opposites speed up the process.
Some species don't heal well at all so @penumbra mention of what trees is valid.
Shape of the cut can also influence healing. I note in the pic that's a horizontal chop which rarely heals well. Angled cut will heal over better despite being a little larger.

Try using cut sealants but also look at extra factors influencing how well and quick cuts heal.
 
Time, timing and species also has a lot to do with this.

Time is really the only thing that is going to close wounds. It can take a while. Cut paste can help keep the wound from drying out--which is what's happened to your trees. Carving out or reducing the deadwood to living tissue can help. Re-wounding the live edge of the callus can stimulate more callus. By re-wounding, I mean do a light cut on the callus with an x-acto knife or similar sharp blade, taking off enough callus to exposed the green cambium, but no more.

Timing chops to early spring can also help, as the tree has more time to produce callus tissue before cold weather sets in. Trunk chops in fall or late summer won't have time to do that.

Species can also matter. Some species close wound slower than others. I have a very large collected oak that is just now finishing closing a large chop wound made 30 years ago. I have a cedar elm that has a similar size chop made at approximately the same time that closed its wound two decades ago.
 
I cant seem to get the bark to grow over the cuts when I make them. I assume its because Im not using paste. I had heard not to but this definitely is not how to do it.
I am in Kansas. There are several different years and seasons I have made these cuts.
 
Even very fast callousing species like Punica and Ulmus can take several years to close medium-sized wounds.
 
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