ganoderma applanatum advice

[charlie6]

Hi all, I'm after a bit of advice on fungi that is on a beech. It's about 1.5m in diameter with a large canopy. The potential customer wants a crown thin or is it best to remove?

 

[charlie6]

[charlie6]

This time the picture should work.

 

 

[Paul Melarange]

Do you have a photo of the whole tree that you could post? Or even just the crown?

 

It would be helpful to gauge the size and shape of the crown and the vitality.

 

Doubt a crown thin is going to be of any benefit. It's unlikely to significantly reduce the wind loading and will limit the resources available to the tree for defence/compartmentalisation.

 

Is there a significant target?

[charlie6]

No sign of poor growth in crown. Looks to be a very old pollard with one stem broken off. Sorry not the best pics.

[Paul Melarange]

It does appear to be an old pollard. Just out of interest are the Ganoderma brackets on the same side as the wound/stub of the failed stem?

 

It is difficult to see from the picture but based on the fact that one stem has already failed, it might be worth carrying out a minor crown reduction to reduce some of the end-weight of the remaining stems.

 

If there is a significant target you could go one step further and map the decay with a Picus.

[charlie6]

The brackets are on a different side but there is a bracket at another location. The failed stem is almost central on the pollard. The black mark on the side of the trunk is from the failed limb. There is also fungus in the left on the first pic that looks like a shadow.