the body language of Decay, The Delights of D

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Yep. The site up until about the 1970s was used for grazing by cattle which would explain how the colybia in.

 

Nope. No tips dead on this one. We do have one in gillingham which is even bigger and has dead tips espcially near the top. It is also hollow and has even more pronounced butresses. It is also well within falling distance of houses and a newly installed pedestrian bridge. So we are keeping a very very close eye on it. Its right next to a constantly shifting river bank and has an active badger sett around it.

 

the lombardi you speak of with extreme buttreses, very thin but high? sound like a drum when you bang them? sounds like typical Pholiota on that, I wouldnt be monitoring, id be reducing.

 

lombardis are a nightmare when hollow and rotten, especialy when maiden and un reduced some time in thier lifes.

[Matthew Arnold]

the lombardi you speak of with extreme buttreses, very thin but high? sound like a drum when you bang them? sounds like typical Pholiota on that, I wouldnt be monitoring, id be reducing.

 

lombardis are a nightmare when hollow and rotten, especialy when maiden and un reduced some time in thier lifes.

 

Thats the plan next month. We have a contractor coming in to reduce by 35-40%. All done by MEWP due to the fact that Lombardis are a major pain to find an anchor. When i am i nthe area i shall get some pics of the big butresses and a pic of my colleague stood in front of the tree. The colleague who i am normally with is 6 ft 2 to give you an idea of the size of it. At a rough guess its probably touching 90ft tall maybe 100 ft and about 5-7 ft across. The MEWP is a specialist one that we have used before. We had several tree surgeons look at it and shy away. We have only just taken the site on (last 2 months or so). We did a site check when we picked it up and we were paying particular attention to stuff leaning from river bank to peoples gardens. We knew the poplar had something wrong with it when a gentleman showed us a picture of it taken in Summer 2010.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

 

Could you expand on the Ash/Inonotus example?

 

i didnt really answer that did I?

 

mmm, seems the ash needs a bit more work, before going onto other trees, and will come back to this in a while tony, day or two:thumbup1:

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

before i get onto tony s and his Ash question, because its Tony and he will require a certain level of submission, which im still working away at!

 

anyways, for now, heres a bit more of one of my personal detective missions, ive said this before, but seriously now, take my word for it, this one is bad news from a parasitic point of view, im really interested in getting out to spain and seeing if this one is within thier beechwoods, because drought stress i believe is the primer for its progression between resting phases.

 

auricularia messenterica AKA the tripe fungus

 

the last two images are from another site and just there to illustrate.

 

 

 

[Matthew Arnold]

Here are the pics of the Gillingham Lombardy Poplar. You can see what i mean by extreme butressing. The fifth pic isnt particularly clear but it shows the height of the tree. As we are in the area again tomorrow i shall get a picture of the whole tree with my colleague stood in front of it.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Here are the pics of the Gillingham Lombardy Poplar. You can see what i mean by extreme butressing. The fifth pic isnt particularly clear but it shows the height of the tree. As we are in the area again tomorrow i shall get a picture of the whole tree with my colleague stood in front of it.

 

that looks pretty normal to me, lot of force flow, active growth/root connections.

[alliaria]

Sorry to butt in on this thread, but almost all mature lombardies exhibit extreme buttressing without the presence of basal decay fungi.Height,movement, reactionwood, at least thats what I thought.

[alliaria]

****, just missed Hamas post, sorry.

[Matthew Arnold]

Sorry to butt in on this thread, but almost all mature lombardies exhibit extreme buttressing without the presence of basal decay fungi.Height,movement, reactionwood, at least thats what I thought.

 

This one has quite a bit of basal decay (its sounds like a drum when you hit the bits between the butresses). The top has die back as you can see in picture 6. Still its a nice example of butressing.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

This one has quite a bit of basal decay (its sounds like a drum when you hit the bits between the butresses). The top has die back as you can see in picture 6. Still its a nice example of butressing.

 

thing with this tree is that its vital, the die back is minimal indicating only early decay to the fine roots. The tree is losing vigour, which means its not extending rapidly and increasing its load as the roots are colonised. In time the buttresses will be truly pronounced, but at the moment (in my opinion based soley on photos and not to be taken as accurate) the decay is not a massive risk, I would put this down in a moderate catagory and mark it down for annual monitor observation for fruit bodies ( september for pholiotta squarrosus) and to have it down to be 20% reduced within 3 years, with that spec to be altered as and when the situation changes.

 

be wary of drum effects on these buttresses they can all have a drum like sound quality to them, if in doubt put a resistograph drill (£600 from sorbus international) do the drilling in the bottom half in the centre of the triangle of the buttress in a downward (approximately 45 degree angle) and remember the centre area of the butress is redundant structuraly, the decay there will give an indication of more value but not enough evidence to warrant more than further investigations.

Edited February 22, 2011 by Tony Croft aka hamadryad