Veterinaising young trees - Pollards with standards

[AHPP]

5 minutes ago, Bolt said:

So, to summarise, you describe yourself as a moderate libertarian who would mainly fund armies and police forces.

 

Nice  :- )

Yeah. That's a fairly typical minarchist position. I didn't say police though. I said law enforcement to include courts etc.

[sean]

Treeation’s thread needs a little bit more respect and appreciation I reckon and discussion should be centred around the project he has embarked upon. 

[Bolt]

27 minutes ago, sean said:

Treeation’s thread needs a little bit more respect and appreciation I reckon and discussion should be centred around the project he has embarked upon. 

 

It's a good call.

 

Regardless of the initial method of funding, I think it's a cracking project, and I for one appreciate Treeations efforts in documenting them here, and his continued personal commitment to the scheme.

 

It is interesting to see the effectiveness over such a short period of time.

[Mark J]

Great project.  The implications for speeding up the enhancement of biodiversity are potentially very useful.

[devon TWiG]

If you came across this piece of woodland  and saw all these mutated / butchered trees whilst out for a walk and had no knowledge that it was some kind of eco-experiment I think most peoples reaction would be WTF is going on here !!!!    interesting though ....

[Treeation]

29 minutes ago, devon TWiG said:

If you came across this piece of woodland  and saw all these mutated / butchered trees whilst out for a walk and had no knowledge that it was some kind of eco-experiment I think most peoples reaction would be WTF is going on here !!!!    interesting though ....

Totally! the owner hasnt been to see it for a while! Might well get a similar reaction from him

[tree-fancier123]

Increasing biodiversity sounds like a noble persuit - but I was wondering if every human being in the world was ordered to spend all their spare time walking around parks and woodlands and removing any fungal brackets found on both standing trees and deadwood, would this make it theoretically possible to wipe out ganoderma and all the other specimen tree killing nasties? Like hunting them to extinction, as they can only release spores from the fruiting bodies? Of course this wouldnt be achievable in practise coz peeps would want to do other stuff instead, just wondered if it would be theortically possible to make fungi extinct - maybe doing so would cause the biosphere to collapse. At least the big trees wouldnt get eaten alive.

I only ask as encouraging dead wood seems to be helping the tree killing fungi.

[Treeation]

9 hours ago, tree-fancier123 said:

Increasing biodiversity sounds like a noble persuit - but I was wondering if every human being in the world was ordered to spend all their spare time walking around parks and woodlands and removing any fungal brackets found on both standing trees and deadwood, would this make it theoretically possible to wipe out ganoderma and all the other specimen tree killing nasties? Like hunting them to extinction, as they can only release spores from the fruiting bodies? Of course this wouldnt be achievable in practise coz peeps would want to do other stuff instead, just wondered if it would be theortically possible to make fungi extinct - maybe doing so would cause the biosphere to collapse. At least the big trees wouldnt get eaten alive.

I only ask as encouraging dead wood seems to be helping the tree killing fungi.

I would have thought removal of fruit bodies might well accelerate the degrading of lignin and cellulose as the mycelium will have to extract more energy from the wood and thus accelerate decay to form new fruiting bodies.....speeding up potential failure

Also, decomposition of deadwood on the woodland floor helps to develop mychorrizal fungi that can help to defend trees against active pathogens such as Armillaria mellea, this can be illustated with the old classic scenario of the over manicured garden where more losses maybe expected by the pathogen, compared to a mature woodland where only the few, weakest specimens succumb to Armillaria

[tree-fancier123]

1 hour ago, Treeation said:

I would have thought removal of fruit bodies might well accelerate the degrading of lignin and cellulose as the mycelium will have to extract more energy from the wood and thus accelerate decay to form new fruiting bodies.....speeding up potential failure

Also, decomposition of deadwood on the woodland floor helps to develop mychorrizal fungi that can help to defend trees against active pathogens such as Armillaria mellea, this can be illustated with the old classic scenario of the over manicured garden where more losses maybe expected by the pathogen, compared to a mature woodland where only the few, weakest specimens succumb to Armillaria

thanks for reply - and I can see your point with honey fungus, but I was asking about having fruiting bodies of say ganoderma on a population of trees, a fungus not known to move from tree to tree underground (that I am aware of), so any trees with recent wounds within a few miles can only be infected by airborne spores - so if theoretically the volume of gano fruiting bodies is reduced in say a 10 mile radius then the incidence of new infections would decrease?. I accept removing the brackets from already infected trees may actually speed up decay for the reason you stated.

[Mark J]

6 hours ago, tree-fancier123 said:

thanks for reply - and I can see your point with honey fungus, but I was asking about having fruiting bodies of say ganoderma on a population of trees, a fungus not known to move from tree to tree underground (that I am aware of), so any trees with recent wounds within a few miles can only be infected by airborne spores - so if theoretically the volume of gano fruiting bodies is reduced in say a 10 mile radius then the incidence of new infections would decrease?. I accept removing the brackets from already infected trees may actually speed up decay for the reason you stated.

Sprores are everywhere mate.