AA Conference 2010 - an overview

[Amelanchier]

As promised in another post, here are my summaries/thoughts of the content of the 2010 AA Conference. It’s a lot of info to process and I can’t promise a complete picture but I hope you’ll get the general idea and maybe those other members who attended can fill in the blanks.

 

I can’t think of a more imaginative way of displaying this so chronologically by speaker will have to do – they’re not all represented, I didn’t go to everything and I tend to be more interested in policy/strategy/legislation so whilst I’ve tried to be objective I reserve the right to fail! I’ll post these separately during the week. It’s too much to dump in one go without stifling discussion and I have some proper work to do in between!

 

Monday

Phil Askew from the Olympic Delivery Authority started us off by showing us a glimpse of the future Olympic parks and discussed their two staged masterplanned structure (during the games and the proposed legacy designs). IMO a worthwhile project ticking some serious green infrastructure boxes – seasonal wet woodland in north London! As much of the site was dominated by Knotweed (and other industrial residues), there was some hints at the technical soil management that has had to be undertaken (ok perhaps that was just me that found that interesting!).

 

Martin Kelly of the TDAG (Trees and Design Action Group) raised the thorny issue of canopy cover assessments and discussed why our urban sprawl seems to have closed up the space available for urban trees. One thing that struck me as we looked at some example images was that Victorian terraces with back to back gardens provide significant biodiversity corridors – perhaps our current vogue for variable plot size and layout misses this simple opportunity? Martin went on to highlight TDAG lobbying progress including references to their guidance that had been made within the London Plan (which impacts upon the LDF polices taken up be the various London boroughs), involvement with the new RIBA publication on valuation and representation at the European Landscape Convention. As we at the coal face (or laminated plywood desk…) are fairly detached from these kinds of advances, it’s good to hear about actual advancement of the tree agenda!

 

Dave Lofthouse (no not Dean!) gave a short overview of Oak Processionary Moth (OPM) and pointed out something fairly obvious that hadn’t occurred to me. Because of the limited range of OPM and it’s slow (yet arithmetically increasing) spread – there is a real opportunity for eradication. However, the current combination of LA and FC seem to be implementing controls under the weaker plant health legislation instead of the more powerful public health tools available.

 

Keith Sacre of Barchams called for more industry involvement (which was to become and ongoing theme throughout the conference) with the embryonic BS:8545 currently titled ‘From nursery to independence in the landscape’. For those who haven’t heard about it, this is intended to bridge the gap between the specification or production of trees and getting them to survive in the ground without constant attention. To that end, Keith suggests using a different language to define the process – instead of describing the end goal as ‘establishment’; we should be looking to talk about independence. The former is too vague, whereas the latter is definable. I guess Keith is anti-establishment…

 

As previously mentioned by the eminent Mr Humphries earlier this week, Schwarze presented his recent research on the use of Tricoderma spp. This involved a breakneck tour of many subjects that probably could have made entire lecture on their own and really fired up the imagination (you would have loved it Tony!) After looking at improving strawberry yields by inoculation beehives and how infected timber makes better sounding Violins, Schwarze discussed a recent paper in the AA journal – specific strains of Trichoderma spp. can prevent colonisation of pruning wounds by decay organisms by either parasitism, producing antibiotic compounds (& VOCs) or simply outcompeting them. However, due to the levels of investment need to satisfy European and international standards on bio-controls (somewhere in the millions), our market is unlikely to see a product.

 

Finally, Philip van Wassener took us through the Canadian experience of urban forest management and the approaches used. He reiterated the fundamental need for urban tree managers to calculate their canopy cover and to identify targets for improvement, including calculating the maximum possible cover based on all the planting sites. He pointed out that as a significant proportion of trees were in private ownership, it was hard to get private owners on board with the management regime if the council’s management and treatment of trees was substandard. An interesting point that translates to many experiences of LA interaction over here.

[Paul Barton]

Wow, your notes were obviously better than mine, or you have a freakish memory for details Tony!

 

The Schwarze talk was amazing indeed. He should become a very rich man now that he can re-create the quality of Stradivarius violins on new violins by inoculating them with fungal spores!

 

It was interesting that using Trichoderma as a biocontrol to improve a tree's defence against wood decay fungi did not work for all fungi. I seem to remember that he said Polyporus sqaummosus and G. applanatum were were not inhibited by the Trichoderma.

 

I was also interested to see that the Trichoderma improved root development and drought tolerance. Hopefully this will attract interest from large companies with an agricultural bias and perhaps be the route to obtaining licenses for the product that will then enable Arbs to utilise them.

[janey]

Were any hints given as to when we're likely to see some of the write ups in the Arb Journal?

[David Humphries]

I had the impression that notes of the speakers presentations, were going to be available after conference on the AA web site.

 

 

 

 

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[arb culture]

Thanks for taking the effort to post that Tony.

[TTHman]

Hello everybody,

as I told in Manchester, I've inserted the slides of my presentation in my website at Homepage Catena & Thermography "Treethermography" since 1984

[Paul Barton]

Thank you Giorgio.

[Arborist]

A bit off topic but relevent to the OPM paragraph, A consultant that I spoke to on Tuesday mentioned that the moth had spread to Sheffield, Is this true?

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

I had the impression that notes of the speakers presentations, were going to be available after conference on the AA web site.

 

 

 

 

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Think the proposal here is that the presentations will only be made available to delegates who attended the conference by using a password, to be issued, to access them....probably then to the 'highest Arbtalk bidder?', ha!

 

Doubtless some of them will end up as papers published in the Arb Journal in the near future...fingers crossed!

 

Cheers..

Paul

[David Humphries]

A bit off topic but relevent to the OPM paragraph, A consultant that I spoke to on Tuesday mentioned that the moth had spread to Sheffield, Is this true?

 

 

Guess that would be an afirmativo........

 

 

Forestry Commission - Plant Health - Oak processionary moth

 

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