accelerating cavity creation in even age stand woods

[zx6rob]

cordless drill and a good size drill bit and bore in deep several times in within the 15cm,might work?

[Charlieh]

i can go better than cordless power drill

[kipperfeet]

I have had a bit of a go with Mycelium plugs with pretty good results but only on dead and well seasoned logs.

Surely on young trees the codit would kick in and halt the progress of the fungi spreading on all walls?

 

We played aroung with veteranizing some huge beech trees at work a few years ago and tried winching the branches out to cause natural fractures but it was actually very difficult. They are resiliant buggers to it. We had to put fairly big back cuts it before the winch (off a landrover doubled up) would do it, by which time the cut didn't look that natural any way. Might be even harder work with a tirfor!

 

We did some with coronet cuts, some with fracture cuts and some to B.S3998. The fracture cuts all had regrowth within two years, which was amazing for an over mature beech.

 

We also created and large bowl in one branch to fill up with water to see what we could get in the wierd micro habitat. Never checked it actually as we need a mewp to get up there but i bet its got fish in!

 

Probably best cutting the holes in with saws or drills and filling them with rotting humus material so it retains the water.

 

Sounds a nice little project that. Good luck:001_cool:

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I have had a bit of a go with Mycelium plugs with pretty good results but only on dead and well seasoned logs.

Surely on young trees the codit would kick in and halt the progress of the fungi spreading on all walls?

 

CODIT will of course kick in as you rightly point out, and this is advantagious, we only want the INNER core to decay with enough of a surface scar for woodpeckers and squirells to knaw at and extend into the rotten heart wood, creating a natural cavity.

 

CODIT will stop the decay going furthe than we desire, but only if we use the correct species of fungi for the species of tree.

[gibbon]

All this talk of introducing fungi. Would you not expect the spores of most species to be present anyway and colonise the trees if conditions are favourable?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

All this talk of introducing fungi. Would you not expect the spores of most species to be present anyway and colonise the trees if conditions are favourable?

 

Firstly we want to speed up natural cavity formation

 

We also want to "choose" the fungi carefully.

 

We also want to "override" latent propogules within the wood by mass colonisation of a competing stronger fungi. By inserting a lot of infected dowels to the wond we ensure dominace of our chosen agent.

[gibbon]

I understand you want to speed up the process, most likely starting with damaging the trees in some way.

 

How do you know what latent fungi are present so how do you know that you are introducing a "stronger fungi"? Do you really think that you can ensure dominance or even infection of a certain fungi in a healthy tree? If so what eveidence is out there to support this, I'm curious

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I understand you want to speed up the process, most likely starting with damaging the trees in some way.

 

How do you know what latent fungi are present so how do you know that you are introducing a "stronger fungi"? Do you really think that you can ensure dominance or even infection of a certain fungi in a healthy tree? If so what eveidence is out there to support this, I'm curious

 

So far it has proved "difficult" to delibratley infect living trees with decay fungi, presumably for research purposes.

 

This is an area of exploration as far as science is concerned as is much of mycology in woodlands. We havent so much as scratched the surface of it yet, not even chinked the subject!

 

Choosing a fungi that can overide is just a question of strength, and numbers.

 

If you read Paul stemets works on labbratory techniques in fungal research you would be put of even trying anything of the sort, the stuff they go through to maintain "clinical" sterile environments to do proper scientific studies is mental. We have the advantage, were in the working environment and dont have to be quite so clinical as a strict researcher.

[VWT Pine Marten Project]

Hi folks, This is a really interesting thread!

 

I work for the Vincent Wildlife Trust as their pine marten officer, so I’m really interested in this thread and the potential it holds. As well as using and promoting den boxes as a rather short/medium-term solution to the lack of suitable cavities we’re also very much interested in developing practical techniques that can be used to speed up or promote ‘natural’ cavity formation.

 

Den sites are probably the main limiting factor for pine martens at this stage and until we have enough natural sites we really won’t make any progress on their conservation here. So basically we’re very keen to work with woodland professionals on this issue, so perhaps we could get something practical going? ....

[Charlieh]

Hi there,

 

I suspect we actually met the other weekend, as i was one of the speakers at the Staffs Mammal conference, It was on the sunday walk that got me thinking about this on sites like Cotton Dell, as i have been involved with much of the monitoring and box installation in Staffs and whilst boxes solve the issue short term its not creating suitable future habitat,

 

it would be interesting to see if some of the FC staff that attended the pine marten conference last year, could identify a suitable site to trail this work on