What is "girdling"

Girdle \Gir"dle\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Girdled; p. pr. & vb. n. Girdling.]

1. To bind with a belt or sash; to gird.
   --Shak.

2. To inclose; to environ; to shut in.

   Those sleeping stones, That as a waist doth girdle you about.
   --Shak.

3. To make a cut or gnaw a groove around (a tree, etc.) through the bark and alburnum, thus killing it. [U. S.]

vb. (present participle of girdle English)

Girdling, also called ring-barking is the complete removal of a strip of bark (consisting of cork cambium, phloem, cambium and sometimes going into the xylem) from around the entire circumference of either a branch or trunk of a woody plant. Girdling results in the death of the area above the girdle over time. A branch completely girdled will fail and when the main trunk of a tree is girdled, the entire tree will die, if it cannot regrow from above to bridge the wound. Among the causes of girdling are human practices, including forestry, horticulture, and vandalism. Foresters use the practice of girdling to thin forests. Girdling can also be caused by herbivorous mammals feeding on plant bark and by birds and insects, both of which can effectively girdle a tree by boring rows of adjacent holes.

Orchardists use girdling as a cultural technique to yield larger fruit or set fruit, often called cincturing used in agriculture. Only the layer just under the bark is removed for this technique.