Tree failure - close shave

[Paul Barton]

One of our surveyors, plus one of our crews, were called to this tree failure yesterday. I have not seen the tree up close yet.

 

Mature Turkey Oak in the region of 80ft tall in a town centre park. No winds. No obvious signs of defects.

 

The rootplate appears to be completely shot to bits and the tree has just socketed out of the ground. Understandably the tree officer is very relieved but also quite anxious about a similar even happening to nearby trees. I have suggested we take the air-spade over and do some root collar investigations on the adjacent Turkey Oaks.

 

So far his thoughts are perhaps Meripilus or Ustulina, but there were no fruiting bodies present to confirm this. He is going to send some wood samples off to a lab to see if the pathogen can be identified.

 

I would welcome your thoughts/comments on the pictures.

[David Humphries]

Yikes !

 

Meripilus would be my initial response, based on the white rotted roots.

 

Though I wouldn't rule out Ganoderma resinaceum.

 

No one has seen any fruiting on these at all ???

 

 

Any shots of the cross cuts from nearer the butt?

 

 

 

Good idea on the airspading Paul.

 

Have you got any specific guarding together for it to protect the targets, or just ply sheeting ?

 

 

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Edited July 5, 2011 by Monkey-D

[Paul Barton]

We could use the stump grinder guards close by, but we currently have nothing bigger.

 

To be honest I would rather cordon off a large area all around the trees and exclude the public for some distance while we are working - particularly if we find any similar decay on nearby trees!

 

No photos of the butt section that I know of - I will speak to the crew leader.

[testcricket01]

we had exactly the same happen this year at the college i was doing my RFS course at, i cant remember what are tutor said it was he showed us though just like this oak failed all roots shot no signs of decay. ill have to ring up my mate who was on the course aswell see if he can remember. scary stuff though just imagine walking up to that and thinking nice strong oak to climb today!

[Paul Barton]

Some more pictures for ya'll.

 

The small fruiting body was found below the soil level. You can see the small area of staining on the butt which corresponds with the location of the decay.

 

I think the FB may be Inonotus dryadeus - it's going off to a lab for confirmation though.

[High Scale]

What kind of time did it come down Paul? Could have been nasty.

[Paul Barton]

Damn straight Carl! 2.30pm on a still sunny afternoon. Extremely fortunate there was nobody on that bench.

[PhilBeech]

Blimey that was a close one!

[Dilz]

will be interested to see what the lab has to say.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Not the pattern i expect of meripilus, Im never happy when Q cerris has decay, if its inonotus dryadeus I am very interested as this is aggressive rot here and dryadeus is not really IME (hundreds of trees) an aggressive root consumer in this way.

 

Cerris is very different to robur, had a play with the image, theres an area that looks very kretz like and soft rot as apposed to the lower portion of white rot which in this case is confined, maybe due to the pressence of the K. deusta in the upper rootcrown?

 

VERY interesting thanks for sharing, and keep us posted:001_cool: