How does a hackberry hold up in a storm?
This is hackberry's specific weakness and the numbers back it: common hackberry took 8.8% severe damage in the ISA ice-storm survey, near the top of the list. That same work found fine branching density and heavy lateral branching predicted ice damage far better than wood strength did, and hackberry has exactly that crown — expect scattered small-to-medium limb loss after every real ice event rather than a catastrophic trunk failure, which means repeat cleanup work instead of one big removal.
What pruning can and can't prevent
Dormant season, and prune it young and prune it often, because hackberry's natural habit is a dense mass of fine twiggy lateral branching and that branch density is exactly what loads up with ice. The species-specific trap is witches' broom — dense contorted twig knots at the branch tips caused by an eriophyid mite plus powdery mildew — which homeowners want pruned out and which is not worth billing for, since it is harmless, it grows back, and the cuts just generate more twiggy growth.
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