110 Clark and Matheny: The Research Foundation to Tree Pruning Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2010. 36(3): 110–120 The Research Foundation to Tree Pruning: A Review of the Literature James R. Clark and Nelda Matheny Abstract. Two hundred one research publications including 152 journal articles were compiled. Forty-four journals were represent- ed with the Journal of Arboriculture, Arboricultural & Urban Forestry, and Arboricultural Journal as the most frequently cited. Com- partmentalization, wounding, wound response, decay development, and wound treatment were the most frequently noted topic areas. The bibliography was organized in Zotero, an application using the Firefox web browser. Keywords were identi- fied for each publication. Where either the article or its abstract was available, an annotation was created. This pa- per describes the major topic areas identified in the review and discusses the future directions for pruning research. Key Words: Tree Pruning; Literature Review. Pruning is at the heart of arboriculture, one of the most impor- tant services arborists provide. To paraphrase Alex Shigo (1989), pruning can be one of the best things an arborist can do for a tree and one of the worse things an arborist can do to a tree. Pruning impacts both tree health and structure. It is practiced worldwide. In 2007, the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) contracted HortScience, Inc. to prepare a literature review on the topic of pruning. The focus of the review was the research literature. The emphasis was on arboriculture but the review could reference forestry and pomology literature as appropriate. MATERIALS AND METHODS In developing the review, the authors focused on peer-reviewed sources, particularly scientific journals. The process was ini- tiated by compiling references from standard industry refer- ences such as Gilman’s Illustrated Guide to Pruning (2nd edi- tion, 2002), and Arboriculture (Harris et al. 2004). The authors also relied on O’Hara’s review of the forestry literature dealing with pruning and wounding (2007). The online archive of the Journal of Arboriculture and Arboriculture & Urban Forestry were searched for titles containing the word “pruning.” There were 42 citations, some of which appeared prior to 1990—a period when articles in the Journal of Arboriculture were not necessarily research based. Major industry standards used in the U.S. (ANSI 2008) and Europe (British Standards Institute 1989; ZTV-Baumpflege 2001; European Arboricultural Council 2008) were then reviewed as well as their supporting publica- tions (Gilman and Lilly 2002; Kempter 2004; Lonsdale 2008). ISA specifically requested an effort to access literature from non-English sources. Literature from outside North America was queried in several ways. First, two English-language jour- nals published in Europe, the Arboricultural Journal (Arbo- ricultural Association, UK) and Urban Forestry and Urban ©2010 International Society of Arboriculture Greening (Springer) were reviewed. This approach yielded good results with Schwarze et al. (2007) and Dujeseifken (2002) as examples. Second, links to non-English publica- tions were searched. Finally, a draft of the literature review was sent to scientists in Germany, Denmark, Italy, and France for comment. Additional references were then incorporated. There were limitations to this approach. First, journals published in languages other than English were generally in- accessible. Second, papers where pruning was not a key- word may have been missed. Third, journals with limited ex- posure and nonpublished dissertations were likely omitted. Fourth, no commercial or university databases were used. Zotero (www.zotero.org) was selected as the bibliographic management program. The program links to Firefox’s Mozilla web browser. For each citation, keywords (called “tags” in Zote- ro’s lexicon) were identified. In addition, an annotation (“note” in Zotero) was prepared (Table 1). The breadth of both keywords and annotation was limited by access to the complete paper. Journal of Arboriculture and Arboriculture & Urban Forestry were unique in that the online archive was completely accessible to members of the International Society of Arboriculture. Older issues can be accessed without membership. Most journals, however, were not fully accessible. In almost all cases, abstracts were used. Approxi- mately 75% of the citations had access to the full article. In the re- maining 25%, annotations were either very limited or not entered. DESCRIPTION OF THE CITATIONS Two hundred one citations were assembled. Among this group were 20 books and 10 book sections. These had broad focus and were included to identify general resources. For the professional arborist, Gilman (2002) is likely to be the best reference as it covers all aspects of the topic from young trees to mature speci- mens, in a variety of settings. The book is also well-illustrated.
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