Base decay in eucalyptus

[APC]

White decay in base on one side. Exterior feels dry and brittle but 2mm in and it feels solid. No history of dropping limbs and looks okay in the crown. It's on the edge of a car park with the other side being an overgrown barely used path (non RoW). Any ideas on the likely culprit? I imagine it won't be salvageable but would like to learn a little more before it's lights out for it.

Many thanks.

 

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

the culprit is the human factor that damaged it, but the fungal agent here is armillaria Sp and looks to me like a secondary crustose fungi too

[APC]

the culprit is the human factor that damaged it, but the fungal agent here is armillaria Sp and looks to me like a secondary crustose fungi too

 

Ta!

 

Unsure how it got the damage though as it's on the path side of the tree so sheltered from the car park. Is the armillaria the white rot?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Ta!

 

Unsure how it got the damage though as it's on the path side of the tree so sheltered from the car park. Is the armillaria the white rot?

 

both the armillaria and crustose fungi will be white rots:thumbup1:

[j r hartly]

Old strimmer damage?

[APC]

Old strimmer damage?

 

Seems a little big for that, the base is about 3 foot across. I would have suggested a tractor smashed it hard years ago but you couldn't fit one down there.

 

I haven't seen any fruiting bodies on or around it before. Imagine we'll dismantle in the near future, owing to the target.

[Fungus]

the fungal agent here is armillaria Sp and looks to me like a secondary crustose fungi too

 

Could you upload an enlarged photo of the "crustose" fungus ?

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Could you upload an enlarged photo of the "crustose" fungus ?

 

split porecrust perhaps? schizopora paradoxa

[Fungus]

split porecrust perhaps? schizopora paradoxa

 

Could be, could also be a non-poroid Aphyllophorales with a smooth hymenium.

[treeseer]

I imagine it won't be salvageable but would like to learn a little more before it's lights out for it.

 

Considering the large amount of woundwood on both sides and the 2mm depth of palpable decay, the tree appears, based on evidence so far, to be possibly stronger than an undamaged tree of the same species and size. Woundwood has been shown--by formal research--to be stronger than normal wood, and formal research is one of many types of science worth our attention. A tomograph may confirm the absence of interior strength loss, but trees stand more on their exterior buttresses than interior heartwood.

 

The ISA BMP on risk (in its 3rd draft and ready to come out later this year) would point to this adaptive growth as a strength gain factor. Target is one of several risk factors, and removal is just one mitigation option. Knowing nothing of the crown, it's hard to say if or how much pruning could or should be done to reduce risk.

 

The first place is to look to the earth. EXcavate the soil around the area, EXpose the edges of the wound, EXamine the material for fungal structures and other clues. EXcise decayed material for assessment, EXtract all the information available. This is the 5-EX protocol, a preliminary arboricultural view of fungal risk assessment. Looking wider, to the foliage in the periphery of the crown and also to mycorrhizae in the periphery of the root system could also yield important information.

 

What sign is there of armillaria?

 

"Crustose" refers to lichen, as used in the USA. The white growth does not resemble a decay fungus that I have seen, but I have never been to England. It appears more like eczema than a wood rotter, from this severely limited mycological view. In searching for distantly recalled terms, I cast my net wide and found

 

"Aphyllophorales

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Aphyllophorales is an obsolete order of fungi in the Basidiomycota. The order is entirely artificial, bringing together a miscellany of species now grouped among the clavarioid fungi, corticioid fungi, cyphelloid fungi, hydnoid fungi, and poroid fungi.[1]

[edit] History

 

The order Aphyllophorales was first proposed in 1922 by Carleton Rea.[2] "A-phyllo-phora" means "not bearing gills", distinguishing the Aphyllophorales from the gilled agarics (mushrooms and toadstools) that Rea placed in the Agaricales. The Gasteromycetales and Heterobasidiomycetes were also excluded.

 

As originally conceived, the Aphyllophorales contained the families Clavariaceae, Cyphellaceae, Fistulinaceae, Hydnaceae, Meruliaceae, Polyporaceae, Polystictaceae, and Thelephoraceae.[2] Most of these families are still current, albeit in an amended form.[3]

 

Though many attempts were made to create a more natural classification of the Basidiomycota, the Aphyllophorales continued to be used (at least by some) until entirely superseded in the 1990s by classification systems based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences.[1]"