When should a sassafras be pruned?
Late winter dormant work only, and go light. The species trap is that heavy pruning provokes suckering — cut it back hard and it answers with a thicket of root sprouts out well past the dripline, so a "just cut it back off the roof" job turns into an annual sucker-mowing obligation for the customer.
Reading sassafras before you cut
Watch for flagging: one limb or one leader wilting, browning and holding its dead leaves while the rest of the crown stays green. That pattern is a vascular problem and worth investigating, whereas general midsummer leaf scorch on an exposed edge tree is routine stress; note that laurel wilt, the disease killing sassafras through the Southeast and into Kentucky, was still not detected in Indiana as of the 2025 surveys, and Purdue has been looking at a separate sassafras wilt involving other pathogens.
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