Butt pollarding Oak tree

[Tree cutter Stu]

If you need a picus test i know a guy with one he would charge no more than £350

[Guest Infinitree]

I've got a very similar tree suffering from a cavity with the presence of G.applanatum- So probably not quite as agressive decay as yours.

Planned stage reduction in 3 phases.

Photos show before and 2 years after first reduction.

[Fungus]

I've got a very similar tree suffering from a cavity with the presence of G.applanatum- So probably not quite as agressive decay as yours.

Planned stage reduction in 3 phases.

Photos show before and 2 years after first reduction.

 

Are you sure of your identification of G. lipsiense on Quercus (?) without microscopically checking its spores, because G. lipsience is seldom found on oaks, which mostly are attacked by the also perennial G. australe or by annual Ganoderma species, such as G. resinaceum or G. lucidum and sometimes by the also perennial G. pfeifferi.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Where are Hamadryad and Monkey D when you need them?

 

Firstly, I apologis, ive not been on for much in the last two days:blushing:

 

the tree and fungi are playing a little tug of war (99% G australe by the way)

 

the long term future of this tree will depend on reducing leverages whilst still retaining phtosynthetic area, the vitality of the tree would be tipped in favour of the fungi if defoliated too much and stressed.

 

That stress could also occur if too much foliage exists in a drought situation too, so its a carefull act to balance.

 

I have seen Oaks rotted off at the roots below ground by this fungi so for me ( a Picus wont tell me anything I cant see already) it is to big for its trunk diameter IMO and needs to be brought down to at least half of its hieght in 2-3 stage spaced 3-5 years apart depending on growth responses. You want to reduce it hard enough to reduce not just length but wieght, this needs to be done enough to allow light to penetrate the inner of scaffolds for shoots to develop, but not be so thin that it depletes energy for the battle ahead.

 

iether way, it is too much wood and frame over that quiet severly compromised root system/lower butt.

[sean freeman]

the tree and fungi are playing a little tug of war (99% G australe by the way)

 

the long term future of this tree will depend on reducing leverages whilst still retaining phtosynthetic area, the vitality of the tree would be tipped in favour of the fungi if defoliated too much and stressed.

 

That stress could also occur if too much foliage exists in a drought situation too, so its a carefull act to balance

 

I absolutely agree with this description of what is shown in the pics provided.

 

All I would add from the other side of the world is that I think you should consider having a close look at the root buttresses with a careful root crown excavation...the aim being to try to assess to what extent the root crown has been compromised by the decay.

 

If you have an air-knife then this is ideal, but you can get a look at the rot crown using old fashoined sweat and tears with small tools and a cautious approach avoiding causing physical damage to roots at the base of the stem.

[Fungus]

That's unfortunate, as because of this, it's not possible to adequately monitor the yearly development of new tube layers on the brackets and diagnose the "body language", i.e. panic reproduction of it as a symptom or predictor of the danger of the fall of the tree, as building "reaction" layers of the bracket now can also be a reaction of the mycelium to the damage done to the bracket.

 

In general, I would advise never to totally remove a perennial bracket of neither saprotrophic, nor necrotrophic or biotrophic parasitic wood degrading macrofungi other then for a very good reason (identification), because removal triggers or forces the mycelium to speedy reinvest in producing reproductive organs by extra decomposing wood to build new brackets from and this destabilizes the already degraded tree even further, because of the extra loss of unaffected wood structures.

And one should also bear in mind, that in the process of converting one sugar polymere cellulose (trees) into another sugar polymere chitine (fungi), about 20 % of the energy stored in the wood is lost, which implicates, that depending on the type of rot, 100 % of fungal tissue outside the tree is associated with (much) more then 120 % loss of wood, because wood only contains 70-80 % cellulose.

Edited May 10, 2011 by Fungus

[sloth]

Because of the lack of energy delivered from the diminishing decomposition of cellulose by the mycelium, needed for forming new layers, the tube layers retract or withdraw while covering the earlier formed pores and layers, as you can see in the photo of an old Phellinus igniarius on an almost completely heartwood white rotted willow.

 

Well illustrated, thank you

[Old Mill Tree Care]

This is brilliant stuff, very useful.

[MattyF]

I would just pollard the tree above the forks and leave as much growth as possible on instead of doing it over years mainly because I believe if a tree is pruned then cut back further it looses any energy it's put in to creating new growth

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

I would just pollard the tree above the forks and leave as much growth as possible on instead of doing it over years mainly because I believe if a tree is pruned then cut back further it looses any energy it's put in to creating new growth

 

and the tree will be RAPIDLY had away by the australe, this is a SLOW game, one that reqiures time and sympathy, not butchery