Should I remove or save my black locust?
Black Locust is on the hazard list here, which shifts the odds toward removal. This is a removal-first species and one of the few on this list that genuinely earns it. A mature black locust in a yard is usually hollow or getting there — locust borer larvae tunnel the trunk and open it to Phellinus robiniae heart rot, so the crown stays green while the stem quietly loses the section holding it up.
How to tell which one you've got
The tell is the trunk, not the canopy: knotty swellings, oozing or sawdust at borer holes, dead and broken limbs scattered through an otherwise leafy crown, and hoof-shaped fungal conks on the stem. Black locust also leafs out notably late every spring, so a bare tree in mid-May is a poor reason to condemn it — the trunk evidence is what separates stressed from structurally finished.
The structural question
Rated susceptible to ice damage, and once borers have tunneled the stem it breaks through the trunk and major limbs rather than shedding twigs, which is why its failures tend to be whole-section and unpredictable. It also holds its compound leaves late into fall, so an early wet November snow catches a black locust with far more surface area than the oaks around it.
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