caused by contact with the tie. If ropes are tied frequently to a tree (e.g. to tether an animal or moor a boat), the friction of the rope can also lead to the removal of bark. The practice of girdling has been known in Europe for some time. Another example is the girdling of selected Douglas-fir trees in some Northern California oak woodlands, such as Annadel State Park, in order to prevent that Douglas-fir from massive invasion of the mixed oak woodland. Girdling can be used to create standing dead wood, or snags. This can provide a valuable habitat for a variety of wildlife, including insects and nesting birds. Horticulture Girdling is also used as a technique to force a fruit-bearing plant to bear larger fruit. A farmer would place a girdle (bark removal) at base of a large branch or at the trunk. Thus, all sugars manufactured by the leaves have no sinks but the fruit, which grows to above the normal size. For grapes girdling or cincturing is used to make the grapes large and sweeter on the grape canopy and are sold as girdled grapes. Flowering and fruit setting is a problem on some trees; girdling may improve yield in the same way. The "damage" done by girdling restricts the movement of nutrients to the roots, thus the carbohydrates produced in the leaves do not go to the roots for storage. Girdling temporarily stops tree growth. Root pruning, an ancient Asian practice, and other controlled damaging, such as driving nails into the trunk or beating the branches and trunk, produce results that are similar to girdling. Girdling is commonly used on grape, avocado, apple, litchi, mango, citrus and other trees. Girdling is normally only done to healthy trees that did not yield well the previous year. Care must be used not to damage sapwood that may kill the tree or vine. Trees normally heal in four to five weeks after cincturing. Painting the cut can protect against fungus and pests. By animals Various animals can girdle trees through their feeding or others activities. In North America, voles in particular are prone to damaging trees by girdling both their roots and trunk. Among North American birds, the sapsuckers are the most common girdlers of trees. While sapsuckers will bore holes in tree trunks to feed upon insects, they also make parallel rings of holes in order to eat