V.T.A symptoms "the chatty trees"

[Treecreeper1961]

One of my fave things to do when out and about is try to determine which trees will fail first in a given population, this wood today is right up my street as they say! This cherry, Prunus avium is being brown rotted by Laetiporus sulphereus, a rot that P. avium never survives indefinatley without serious structural modifications. The language in this is clear, major decay and hollowing ( though not hollowing in the true sense, just modified wood) with shear cracks forming on the tension sides as she delaminates before she goes down.

 

Its the body language that guides us, too much work is proposed with little attention to thorough reading of the structures of trees, they will tell you when they are in trouble, there is always a sign, you just have to listen. Becoming very familiar with the trees in your local woods and practising this is the best possible experience you can gain, there is no risk to anyone from the trees in the wild woods and you can re visit them for years and years and perfect your skills. In time youll learn what defects are truly worth worrying about and which are a long long way from becoming an issue. and if your wrong and it fails or if your right, it doesnt matter, you will gain everytime.

 

:thumbup1:Very wise words. If in a hurry to learn just stalk Hamadryad.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

no, it terminated at the point at the top of the picture below a tertiary branch so i ddnt take a photo any higher

there seems to be a fair bit of of Armillaria throughout the site, we removed a 40 inch Sweet chestnut last year that had succumed and theres another of a similar size that is suffering.

 

long term colonisation by armillaria on sycamore looks like this, they usualy fall over before the armillaria gets to switch from butt rot mode to cambium killer.

 

note the discontinuation/fluting of the trunk, with sinking dysfunctional areas of depression between the fluting, these are the channels of highest water content and active living tissues.

 

 

[John Shutler]

if sweet chestnut succumbs to mellea there is an underlying issue, what is the site groundwork history? any leaky drains?

 

its funny you say that, the latest one suffering has had a multi million pound lifeboat training staion built within its RPA. theres a couple of others within the site that have patches of bark necrosis but showing good wound wood development on the edges

[John Shutler]

long term colonisation by armillaria on sycamore looks like this, they usualy fall over before the armillaria gets to switch from butt rot mode to cambium killer.

 

note the discontinuation/fluting of the trunk, with sinking dysfunctional areas of depression between the fluting, these are the channels of highest water content and active living tissues.

 

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i might take a trip back there this friday and take a couple of snaps of some sycs that look like they are headed this way

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

i might take a trip back there this friday and take a couple of snaps of some sycs that look like they are headed this way

 

 

Sycamore are so prone to it, but live for a long time while fighting it, people think armillaria are like some plague! they are there all the time, just tapping their toes waiting for the right time, we let them in most of the time.

[John Shutler]

Sycamore are so prone to it, but live for a long time while fighting it, people think armillaria are like some plague! they are there all the time, just tapping their toes waiting for the right time, we let them in most of the time.

 

through mower damage in this case

[treeseer]

& perhaps resurect the removed habitat back upright, secured to the trunk.

 

 

 

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Absolutely, that would retain wildlife value, so nature could do more of her thangs, and the tree last longer. why why why? 1 Because it is there.

 

2 Retaining the tree may also retain the kind of habitat that serves the kind of wildlife that the owner is interested in. Saproxylic red-listers and all that.

[Matthew Arnold]

Spotted some fluting on a twin stemmed Sycamore. Will keep an eye on the basal Stazi ears as we plan on doing some thinning work in there to remove the squirrel damaged stuff. I also noticed some buckling on an Oak stem with a wound on one side. No fruiting bodies yet but there must be something at play.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Spotted some fluting on a twin stemmed Sycamore. Will keep an eye on the basal Stazi ears as we plan on doing some thinning work in there to remove the squirrel damaged stuff. I also noticed some buckling on an Oak stem with a wound on one side. No fruiting bodies yet but there must be something at play.

 

theres an old stub long occluded on that buckle too, suspect it will be one of the brown rots like Daedalea quercina, F hepatica or laetiporus:thumbup1:

[Matthew Arnold]

theres an old stub long occluded on that buckle too, suspect it will be one of the brown rots like Daedalea quercina, F hepatica or laetiporus:thumbup1:

 

Cool. Will be leaving that stem then. Wont reach the trailway below and will just hang up in a Sycamore behind.