Sycamore heartwood rot

[Morton]

Hi and hopefully someone can help advise me.  I have looked at a large sycamore today with a number of cavities from previous wounds.  The wood is growing really well to heal up the holes but water is getting in and most of the heartwood is rotten.  I could push my metal probe through to the sapwood on the other side of the tree.  There were around three cavities that had black rotten wood inside and the lowest was also oozing a brown sludge along with water that is collecting.  I'm reading though my books but struggling to know whether this tree is likely to be safe.  The main trunk is rotten inside but the growth as you can see around the cavities is really good.  The canopy is nice and tight with very little dead wood and overall looks healthy.

Any advice here would be much appreciated.

  

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Bacterial wet-wood is the brown ooze, an internal cavity  of around 60% is expected in old trees and safe but getting close to the threshold of 70% decay (T/R ratios Prof Claus Mattheck) The black area over the wound could be psuedosclerotial or a tar treatment hard to say.

 

Are you sure its sycamore? and not Acer sacharinum/negundo etc?

 

Acers do not have heartwood by the way, ripewood yes, but not  a durable heartwood like Oaks for example