24/05/2026
Repost from Justin Krobot, Board Certified Arborist based in Texas, United States 👇🏼
Gravity won.
I spotted this massive failed pecan along the Guadalupe River while driving by and stopped to take a closer look.
We talk a lot in arboriculture about wind loading, lean, decay, and canopy imbalance, but gravity is the constant force acting on a tree every second of every day.
The entire mass of the tree is continuously transferring load through the stem and into the root system, and trees spend their entire lives adapting to that stress through taper, root support, and reaction wood.
Until they can’t.
At some point, the load exceeded this tree’s structural capacity and the stem failed at the base. What’s interesting is this tree otherwise appeared relatively healthy from the outside.
My first thought was possibly basal decay from something like brittle cinder fungus (Kretzschmaria deusta), which is known for causing sudden failures in trees that still appear vigorous and healthy externally.
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