Clear Trunk Definition

[Mr. Clark]

A few of my baby's are heading on down the road!  This is the first actual sale for my hobby nursery, and I want to make an honest deal with the buyer.   Clear trunk seems to be what everyone uses for these trees in this area, and what the buyer is expecting.  I have tried to find a formal definition of Clear Trunk, but lots of conflicting info to be found and based seems somewhat subjective... so looking for a general consensus.    

• The Green line is about where the ANSI nursery standards for palms would be ( 'Trunk height is measured from the ground line... to the base of the heart leaf.')
• The Purple line is about where the trunk begins to transition to newer growth.
• The Orange line is where they decided the tree looked good enough.  

What would you all consider to be the Clear Trunk? 

 

Please forgive the blur, just found out my camera len protector took a hit

[sonoranfans]

I always thought it was top of soil to bottom of crown shaft for crown shafted palms like royals is termed clear trunk, that is no leaf bases.   Top of soil to the bottom of of the oldest viable(live) leaf base would be the trunk height for a non crown shafted palm like p. sylvestris.  I have some palms where the leaf bases on non crown shafts fall off to a relatively smooth trunk.  For example My sabal causiarum has 15' clear trunk, then another 5-6 feet of more recent but still persistent leaf bases before the viable leaves start further up the trunk.  So the gold line looks like trunk height of the palm, the green and purple lines have no meaning to me.

[Merlyn]

The orange line would be my expectation as a buyer.  "Clear trunk" to me means from soil line up to the lowest live frond.  You could "cheat" by cutting off another row at the bottom, but as a buyer I'd be annoyed by "overpruning" to make it seem taller. 

BTW - the Sylvestris to the lower left of the main one looks like it could have Lethal Bronzing.  If they've been just growing like that for a long time and not been pruned, then it may be no reason for concern.

[Mr. Clark]

24 minutes ago, Merlyn said:

BTW - the Sylvestris to the lower left of the main one looks like it could have Lethal Bronzing.  If they've been just growing like that for a long time and not been pruned, then it may be no reason for concern.

we tested a few samples for LB through the FL Dept. of AG - all negative.  These have been neglected by the previous property owner for sure, but we are culling any sick  stock and I believe that one is coming down.  In general, we are moving away from Sylvester's entirely due to likelihood of LB to be heavy in our area going forward.

[Johnny Palmseed]

First of all, kudos to you for your ethical approach to business practices. As a customer, I thought the orange line would be the clear trunk cutoff although I would not have a specific problem with the purple line. To me, calling the green line the top of the clear trunk would be a stretch. My suggestion would be to price them like Christmas trees as a range vs. a single height. Perhaps using the orange and purple lines you could price then like 8-9’ and you would be very transparent.

[Mr. Clark]

Thanks Johnny !   I like with this approach, and plan to use it going forward.   

In this case the buyer is buying out all our healthy stock, so we can clear the field and rotate crops.  He doing the trimming and digging for a more favorable price, and has some control over how much CT is presented if using the orange line (within limits, obviously).  If this was a couple trees, it's no big deal - but this being a bulk order it could really add up.

[aztropic]

"Clear trunk" measurement has always been the orange line. It is the measurement of actual,clear trunk,from ground level,to the first attached boot or base of crown shaft.

 

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona