V.T.A symptoms "the chatty trees"

[Treecreeper1961]

I wonder whos home in the last shot of the Oak butt!

 

[ATTACH]85807[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]85808[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

 

 

The first photo shows a heavily leaning beech with upper crown in decline. Difficult to comment whether the are any competition issues adding to the lean.

There appears to be some exaggerated basal flare and this, with the crown die back, could indicate the presence of a fungi such as M.giganteus, largely confined to the central root plate and perhaps extending up the stem, thinning the shell and resulting to the swelling opposite the lean.

There is the evidence of a shear crack just above the base. Little sign of bark buckling. Is this due to the thin bark, or has the shear crack resulted from the embrittlement caused by the fungal decay?

All of this could be the result of agricultural practices which have had an adverse effect on the rhizosphere, compaction from stock or machinery, damage from ploughing or use of agri-chemicals.

[Treecreeper1961]

I wonder whos home in the last shot of the Oak butt!

 

[ATTACH]85809[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]85810[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

Oaks in pictures 3 and 4 possibly suffering from an infestation of Badiusarbus prcticus.

Although this could be a false alarm as there are some signs of recovery.

I am not too sure but there appears to be the indication of reaction to "slow heartwood rotters", probably unlikely to have entered or been activated by relatively recent pruning.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

The first photo shows a heavily leaning beech with upper crown in decline. Difficult to comment whether the are any competition issues adding to the lean.

There appears to be some exaggerated basal flare and this, with the crown die back, could indicate the presence of a fungi such as M.giganteus, largely confined to the central root plate and perhaps extending up the stem, thinning the shell and resulting to the swelling opposite the lean.

There is the evidence of a shear crack just above the base. Little sign of bark buckling. Is this due to the thin bark, or has the shear crack resulted from the embrittlement caused by the fungal decay?

All of this could be the result of agricultural practices which have had an adverse effect on the rhizosphere, compaction from stock or machinery, damage from ploughing or use of agri-chemicals.

 

 

easy tiger, all the above good except its a seperation shear crack forming due to the shear stresses delaminating at root junctions:scared: even worse than a normal shear crack.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Oaks in pictures 3 and 4 possibly suffering from an infestation of Badiusarbus prcticus.

Although this could be a false alarm as there are some signs of recovery.

I am not too sure but there appears to be the indication of reaction to "slow heartwood rotters", probably unlikely to have entered or been activated by relatively recent pruning.

 

 

atypical basal flare form associated with (on Q robur/petrea) inonotus dryadeus, also likely to be the cause of crown dieback, though as a consequence of grazing/agricultural practice.

[Treecreeper1961]

atypical basal flare form associated with (on Q robur/petrea) inonotus dryadeus, also likely to be the cause of crown dieback, though as a consequence of grazing/agricultural practice.

 

Is that the oak/s in 3 and 4 or the last picture?

[Treecreeper1961]

I wonder whos home in the last shot of the Oak butt!

[ATTACH]85811[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]85812[/ATTACH]

 

 

Here we have an A.hippocastanum, which immediately makes me think there could be any number of things wrong with it.

 

From a distance, it appears to have a "life belt".

Closer up, this seems unlikely as the bark pattern is badly altered. This could be due to HCBC, which the tree has managed to halt,perhaps?

Or, could we be looking at pruning wounds from a crown lift?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

co dom stems in close grown forest stands tend to be 20degrees and more acute open grown tension forks much wider in gape.

 

Please excuse my ignorance and haste with these foolish questions.

 

I am really trying to get the technicalities of these symptoms sorted in my mind.I decided to read or re-read the chatty tree thread, it's a great learning resource.

As you know, I am currently in possession of the Updated VTA handbook, another great resource. The prompt for the question comes from the book, I suppose.

Mattheck's description of the "outwardly arched welding seam" of the Chinese moustache led me to question whether the "active" fault was indeed that, or instead the long seam of the moustache. Gut instinct is definitely telling me there is something wrong there, no doubt about it.

If it is a tension fork with no included bark, active and failing as it appears to be, what is the correct term for that, or is it just a crack? Just tell me to shut up if you want.

The concept of the poorly formed or weak union becoming "active" is new thinking, or terminology at least, to me.

If a compression fork is observed regularly enough, is it likely that the "activation" of the crack or split will be seen before it fails?

Perhaps this is entirely dependent on wind loading.

Is there any way to predict the failure of these formations?

Does an active split mean impending doom?

With targets(shall we say a moderately used B road) present, would you consider a reduction to alleviate stress on an active fork?

 

Cheers.

 

i missed this one somehow earlier! apologies.

 

will try and break it down and cover all your quiz here!

 

I often forget myself when I am posting away, take it for granted what i have learned, there was a time when I used those terms you use and as for "active" that is something I guess I've coined myself because of my deliberate and focused study of compression tension forks and the modes of failure.

 

That in itself makes me uncomfortable because if i am coining new terms and these are being taken into application by others I become responsible for that teaching, or more importantly responsible for any errors others make because of it!

 

Please remember I do not rate myself, and within the pages of arbtalk my own path and increasing insights and learning is documented by my own personal errors. that is something i am unafraid of exposing and so tend to look at my postings as a kind of shared learning experience rather than as master of a subject in which I am not an expert.

 

but yes active is what i mean and what that means is what is implied that these faults like all tree faults least 99.95% are readable and forseable, for they take time to form and stress takes time and growth which is slow, to form. in the vast majority of cases stress shows in the languages, be they strictly mechanical/weight etc or increased via dysfunction or decay.

 

I know there are many who will have me guts torn out for saying so, but failures of this kind are rarely unforseable or rather we can monitor them sometimes we have to do this frequently but symptoms and warnings are usually evident, sometimes for decades before the failure occurs, but continued growth leads to increase in stress and if conditions are sub optimal this will show.

 

 

 

Blimey that post of yours made me think about a lot of stuff!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Here we have an A.hippocastanum, which immediately makes me think there could be any number of things wrong with it.

 

From a distance, it appears to have a "life belt".

Closer up, this seems unlikely as the bark pattern is badly altered. This could be due to HCBC, which the tree has managed to halt,perhaps?

Or, could we be looking at pruning wounds from a crown lift?

 

Im really going to have to stop expecting it to all be obvious and be far more forthcoming in my postings. I have to thank you treecreeper, your forcing me to see a lot of my posting shortfalls! I always think I need not give every detail but i really have to up the game on that front.

 

This is a grafted cultivar, I believe A.carnea, which has an active tension fork failure occuring which is being made all the more so by the other thing you see which is in fact Nectria cankers which this species is VERY susceptable to.

 

 

 

 

 

[RobArb]

Im really going to have to stop expecting it to all be obvious and be far more forthcoming in my postings. I have to thank you treecreeper, your forcing me to see a lot of my posting shortfalls! I always think I need not give every detail but i really have to up the game on that front.

 

This is a grafted cultivar, I believe A.carnea, which has an active tension fork failure occuring which is being made all the more so by the other thing you see which is in fact Nectria cankers which this species is VERY susceptable to.

 

[ATTACH]85865[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]85866[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]85867[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]85868[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]85869[/ATTACH]

 

Going to have to disagree with you there tony, for a start it's Aesculus x carnea, not A.carnea:001_tt2:

 

Secondly, these are 'bud proliferations', an unexplored arboricultural disease (probably viral) that affects only this hybrid of Aesculus, it is a canker but not Nectria:001_rolleyes:

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Going to have to disagree with you there tony, for a start it's Aesculus x carnea, not A.carnea:001_tt2:

 

Secondly, these are 'bud proliferations', an unexplored arboricultural disease (probably viral) that affects only this hybrid of Aesculus, it is a canker but not Nectria:001_rolleyes:

 

 

 

 

so why the dead spots robarb?

 

your going to have to convince me!