Bleeding canker English walnut

[treeseer]

Gerrit, that link was read as "http:" only; likely due to my weak connection here (and yes you can infer a double meaning there if you like!)

 

i'm familiar with Marx' earlier work with P tictorius on trees in mining rubble, but it also grows in landscapes, so it may also be symbiotic there as well. studies on ineffective packaged products seem to point more to their shelf life than viability when fresh, but they are expensive. nowadays i just break apart puffballs and shake spores into woodchip piles near certain species and let it all rot, so white oak mycrrhizae can be applied to white oak trees, etc.

 

Horribly unsophisticated, and scientific only on the most rudimentary level so i make no claim of being a scientist! if there is a simple way of doing a more precise job i would be glad to hear of it, but treating a sick oak with living soil taken from a healthy oak seems to make sense. Also the effectiveness was confirmed by experiments done by Fini and Ferrini and presented in 2010's ISA conference. It's on the cd at home; not yet published though their work on mulching with compost has: Article Request Page

 

hama: "Why complicate a simple method? the removal of rhizos and a perlite sand mix is enough messing around, and will tip the blance back in the trees favour. we try to make it all so complicated, let nature do the work, just help the environment along and it will be fine."

 

I agree that complication for complication's sake should be avoided. The work cited was done years ago, so it's more like a complex method was simplified, but for instance: Percival has done outstanding work showing that rosaceous mulch such as hawthorn has fungistatic, if not fungicidal effects, so why should arborists not apply that as well, or even some of the other options listed here? http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=2930&Type=2

(uh oh, there's that wound treatment bugaboo again--please refer disparaging comments to the author; don't shoot the messenger!

 

Isolating one treatment may be important in research so its effect can be proven, but in the field the goal is not verifiable data but healthy trees. Helping the environment along with more than one treatment seems to result in higher probability that nature will succeed and the balance will tip and the trees will benefit. Our job seems to be to apply all the information available in a reasonable way, and not just copy individual and untrialed approaches like the sand/perlite work, in lieu of all else.

 

That's just one view, from the same path as you, shoobeedoobeedoo.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Gerrit, that link was read as "http:" only; likely due to my weak connection here (and yes you can infer a double meaning there if you like!)

 

Weak connection, no, your just new, and all contributions to topic are welcome, reading into the double meaning, which you clearly asked us to do.

 

i'm familiar with Marx' earlier work with P tictorius on trees in mining rubble, but it also grows in landscapes, so it may also be symbiotic there as well. studies on ineffective packaged products seem to point more to their shelf life than viability when fresh, but they are expensive. nowadays i just break apart puffballs and shake spores into woodchip piles near certain species and let it all rot, so white oak mycrrhizae can be applied to white oak trees, etc.

 

What use are the puff balls, have you studied their predesesors and decided that they are suitable? I mean fungi tend to succeed one another in the environment, one making good for the nest etc. What work have you read that suggests puff balls of a given species are correct for applying to raw chip/mulch?

 

Horribly unsophisticated, and scientific only on the most rudimentary level so i make no claim of being a scientist! if there is a simple way of doing a more precise job i would be glad to hear of it, but treating a sick oak with living soil taken from a healthy oak seems to make sense. Also the effectiveness was confirmed by experiments done by Fini and Ferrini and presented in 2010's ISA conference. It's on the cd at home; not yet published though their work on mulching with compost has: Article Request Page

 

Yes unsophisticated but reasonable assumptions, a healthy oak will be healthy for it has all its tree species specific friends about it, so your path is logical. however I think your in danger of running about like a headless chicken clutching at straws of possibilities in the desert of collective knowledge, and I dont like to see wasted time and or resources chasing mirage's. I dont have enough knowledge on the subject of Bio remidiation but i am working on it, i do however have a great deal of common sense.

 

hama: "Why complicate a simple method? the removal of rhizos and a perlite sand mix is enough messing around, and will tip the blance back in the trees favour. we try to make it all so complicated, let nature do the work, just help the environment along and it will be fine."

 

I agree that complication for complication's sake should be avoided. The work cited was done years ago, so it's more like a complex method was simplified, but for instance: Percival has done outstanding work showing that rosaceous mulch such as hawthorn has fungistatic, if not fungicidal effects, so why should arborists not apply that as well, or even some of the other options listed here? http://joa.isa-arbor.com/request.asp?JournalID=1&ArticleID=2930&Type=2

(uh oh, there's that wound treatment bugaboo again--please refer disparaging comments to the author; don't shoot the messenger!

 

Isolating one treatment may be important in research so its effect can be proven, but in the field the goal is not verifiable data but healthy trees. Helping the environment along with more than one treatment seems to result in higher probability that nature will succeed and the balance will tip and the trees will benefit. Our job seems to be to apply all the information available in a reasonable way, and not just copy individual and untrialed approaches like the sand/perlite work, in lieu of all else.

 

I think here you have misunderstood, I am saying let us not complicate it by manipulating further the BIOLOGICAL content of the Rhizosphere/natural nieghbourhood BEFORE we have good indications that what we are doing is just. There is much money being made and much "fairy dust" being applied within our industry, so many folks jumping on the "innoculation" bandwagon long before its wheels have been secured.

That's just one view, from the same path as you, shoobeedoobeedoo.

 

As for my path, i shall be walking it, as appossed to trying to run:001_cool:

[sean freeman]

Nice post Tony, we are all working in different environments where though I believe the fundementals are shared, the specific interactions and relationships between trees and their associates are often very different.

 

Gerrit has highlghted what I already knew (but did not really recognise the scale!) that in Oz we are somewhat hamstrung by the lack of mycological work and its attention having been elsewhere (not on the ecology of our wood decay fungi).

 

Though I believe (perhaps self delusionally) we are going in the same general direction I am certainly not on the same path as some Arbs...again I like to tell myself it is due to factors relating to their different working environment, and different focus...though sometimes I really wonder about that too.

 

I feel a long way away from those who would seperate out trees from their associates and present what are (IMO) simplified tree 'artifacts' and the subsequent 'solutions'. I don't have all the answers, I'm not even clear about what all the questions are.

 

However I am certain the lack of understanding and acknowledgement of tree time (and what it means for sustainable options in tree management) needs to be addressed by those of us able to commit time and resource to do so.

[treeseer]

"What use are the puff balls, have you studied their predesesors and decided that they are suitable? I mean fungi tend to succeed one another in the environment, one making good for the nest etc. What work have you read that suggests puff balls of a given species are correct for applying to raw chip/mulch?"

 

Pisolithus tinctorius ARE puff balls, dear lad--who you callin' new? Perhaps I have attended different denominations of the Church of Mycology, but that does not mean that I just fell off the truffle truck when I landed in the arbtalk chapel. Plus I'm probably old enough to be yo daddy but no matter.

 

Yes, there are other puff ball fungal species I am sure, and no

I did not do sophisticated assays or DNA analyses to determine the precise species. I looked at pictures, and shook some spores onto paper, and carried on. The attached from 3+ years ago has a picture, taken in my yard, that jolly well resembles images of P tinctorius that Marx' colleague showed me in Pathology class 24 years ago, you young pup! It also resembles the ones that Google would have shown you, if you had bothered to look before leaping to attack my modus stumblandi.

 

"Yes unsophisticated but reasonable assumptions, a healthy oak will be healthy for it has all its tree species specific friends about it, so your path is logical. however I think your in danger of running about like a headless chicken clutching at straws of possibilities in the desert of collective knowledge, and I dont like to see wasted time and or resources chasing mirage's. I dont have enough knowledge on the subject of Bio remidiation but i am working on it, i do however have a great deal of common sense."

 

Well then you might show it with some discretion. I've gone from "naive" to a headless chicken chasing mirages wasting time? I don't think so! You will continue to lack knowledge of bioremediation or much of anything arboricultural as long as you remain paralyzed by a lack of precision, or await specific instruction from some narrow list of qualified sources--like a green light from Amsterdam? It does not hurt to stick your neck out a little; no ax will turn you into a headless chicken!

 

"I think here you have misunderstood, I am saying let us not complicate it by manipulating further the BIOLOGICAL content of the Rhizosphere/natural nieghbourhood BEFORE we have good indications that what we are doing is just. There is much money being made and much "fairy dust" being applied within our industry, so many folks jumping on the "innoculation" bandwagon long before its wheels have been secured."

 

So many arbs are so focused on condemning "snake oil" they won't lubricate the wheels of their own wagon of progress with science-based (not necessarily -proven) field trials. It's as if you've gazed upon the Medusa of the fear of ridicule and turned to stone. The study in Tienanmen Square (which led to radial trenching going into ISA lit and further research) was precisely quoted in the story.

 

It was done with chicken dung, dead branches, and sand--a reviewer's input (similar to your skeptical output here) compelled the addition of rotting leaves, which I went along with after some tete a tete. It was a nice touch, but unnecessary.

 

"As for my path, i shall be walking it, as appossed to trying to run"

 

I'm too old to run anymore, but too impatient to walk. I commonsensically hop, not leap, so the next square is visible. More like Bugs Bunny, not the crazy March Hare you make me out to be. Befitting your nationality, you seem to espouse the trepidaceous Peter Rabbit as role model. He fears going back into the garden again, loathing Mrs. MacGregor's mean old cat, or losing his clothing again, or getting switched by Benjamin Bunny's father. Oh my, whatever shall we do?

 

Just funnin with ya Tony, but don't worry, the next shoe will drop. A buckled boot perhaps, no doubt on my head.

Dendro 10 Lost Laurels.pdf

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Nice post Tony, we are all working in different environments where though I believe the fundementals are shared, the specific interactions and relationships between trees and their associates are often very different.

 

Often different, not as different as we assume, the species are different yes, but the roles are often kin, we need to evaluate those species that fill the niches that are the common theme of all systems globaly.

 

Gerrit has highlghted what I already knew (but did not really recognise the scale!) that in Oz we are somewhat hamstrung by the lack of mycological work and its attention having been elsewhere (not on the ecology of our wood decay fungi).

 

Not just Au, fungi have been much neglected, it is partly due to the lack of cool surounding mycology, it faded and new recruits stopped taking up the cause. This was a great travesty to science in general, and especialy our science, some of us are trying hard to make the subject of mycology something inspiring once more, we have a great deal to catch up on, and it may take many decades to recover the lost ground.

 

Though I believe (perhaps self delusionally) we are going in the same general direction I am certainly not on the same path as some Arbs...again I like to tell myself it is due to factors relating to their different working environment, and different focus...though sometimes I really wonder about that too.

 

i think you are not so far away from a great insight

 

I feel a long way away from those who would seperate out trees from their associates and present what are (IMO) simplified tree 'artifacts' and the subsequent 'solutions'. I don't have all the answers, I'm not even clear about what all the questions are.

 

A long way away because science is changing, we are discovering that the singularity is dead, long live the science of natural neighbourhood/natural inclusionality. let them chase the third body problem, like headless chickens.

 

However I am certain the lack of understanding and acknowledgement of tree time (and what it means for sustainable options in tree management) needs to be addressed by those of us able to commit time and resource to do so.

 

mans biggest problem is highlighted in your statement, he fears his mortality and shortness of life and makes pressure for speed and urgency and quick gratifications, our work is not our own, each of us must work on one piece of the mighty puzzle and then allow another to continue that piece, we try as a species too hard to complete the image of our world and claim credit as individuals, maybe we need to think like insects more.

[treeseer]

Sean, if you are feeling hamstrung, and baffled by the complexity of all these specific interactions and relationships, then how do you prescribe any action for trees? I doubt that Shigo meant that "thinking in tree time" forced us to wait until that dead branch fell off the tree of its own accord before it could inoculate or even mulch the soil, as we stood helplessly by--what page was that on?

 

My goal is to foster a direct and natural connection between trees and associates, but I am not so quick to condemn "those who would seperate out trees from their associates and present what are (IMO) simplified tree 'artifacts' and the subsequent 'solutions'." If it works, great, good for them, they earned their profits. If not, try, try again. If our reach does not exceed our grasp, then what's a heaven for? (Anon.)

 

I don't have all the answers either--I don't claim to have any permanent solutions, let alone correctness, but I'm clear enough about what the questions are to try out some potential answers. And you are right; I am aware enough of my own mortality, perhaps because I have brushed it more than once, and am chronologically much closer to it, to get off my ass and dance a little.

If you are indeed "...certain the lack of understanding and acknowledgement of tree time (and what it means for sustainable options in tree management) needs to be addressed by those of us able to commit time and resource to do so.", then please explain that to me, because that rambling is clear as mud. How can we know that inoculating soil with natural organisms is not sustainable, unless we try it? Are we only allowed to try what people driving yellow trucks do?

 

"mans biggest problem is highlighted in your statement, he fears his mortality and shortness of life and makes pressure for speed and urgency and quick gratifications, our work is not our own, each of us must work on one piece of the mighty puzzle and then allow another to continue that piece, we try as a species too hard to complete the image of our world and claim credit as individuals, maybe we need to think like insects more."

 

Yes Tony, of course you are right. We should all wake up like Kafka tomorrow morning and realize our Metamorphoses into cockroaches, because that is our proper state. All else is vain humbuggery, this joining together of puzzle pieces is outlandish individualism. Any one person trying to connect observations of one thing with study of another should have his head chopped off and run away like chicken spraying blood, so we who stay content within our little pieces are not offended by such obsequiousness.

 

The mighty puzzle is beyond our understanding; that much we must understand. We must sip our Soma and strap on our Malthusian belts as we toil in this brave new world. (If you need to preach Huxley go ahead; I'll stay on as HG Wells.) Our work is not our own? Of course not, we all stand on the shoulders of giants--if we manage to get off our knees. Or shall we be satisfied by toiling for Napoleon and Snowball instead?

 

Those Chinese who put 2 and 2 together and developed radial trenching using soil inoculation (btw even a softcore ISA man who reads consumer brochures would be aware of that) should have been squashed like the protestors for democracy, by the same tanks that compacted the soil in the first place. What a concept, people ruling themselves. We try as a species too hard to complete the image of our world. We should scurry around under leaves instead, one step ahead of that cat.

 

yeah, right. You may be a fine arborist, but your sociology needs some work. As for psychology, your complete avoidance of all my responses speaks volumes. Your silence must be assent, thank you! Instead of shooting the messenger, ad hominem, you told him to act more like a bug, ad insectam. How low can you go, protozoa?

 

I hope those horsechestnuts get better care. The op had an open mind; maybe its hinges were not corroded by conformity, or maybe a lack of overanalysis means a lack of paralysis.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

"What use are the puff balls, have you studied their predesesors and decided that they are suitable? I mean fungi tend to succeed one another in the environment, one making good for the nest etc. What work have you read that suggests puff balls of a given species are correct for applying to raw chip/mulch?"

 

Pisolithus tinctorius ARE puff balls, dear lad--who you callin' new? Perhaps I have attended different denominations of the Church of Mycology, but that does not mean that I just fell off the truffle truck when I landed in the arbtalk chapel. Plus I'm probably old enough to be yo daddy but no matter.

 

and thats me out of communicating with you too now, I was merely asking, so i understood.

[Fungus]

1. Marx' earlier work with P tinctorius on trees in mining rubble, but it also grows in landscapes, so it may also be symbiotic there as well ... studies on ineffective packaged products ... but they are expensive ... nowadays i just break apart puffballs and shake spores into woodchip piles near certain species ...

2. experiments done by Fini and Ferrini ... work on mulching with compost ... Percival ... mulch ... fungistatic, if not fungicidal effects ... Isolating one treatment may be important in research so its effect can be proven, but in the field the goal is not verifiable data but healthy trees. Helping the environment along with more than one treatment seems to result in higher probability that nature will succeed and the balance will tip and the trees will benefit.

 

Guy,

1. I attended Marx's Dutch seminar on reforestation of coniferous trees on mining rubble with the "help" of Treesaver ®, a very expensive commercial product, of which he refused to "give away" the constituents, which I later "unveiled" publically in a series of articles (in Dutch) on the subject.

In the discussion afterwards he had to admit, that there was no evidence of his product being effective in soils with a pH 3 or higher and/or with other tree species then the species he planted in his field experiment as a result of the spores and hyphae of endo- and ectomycorrhizal fungi he included in the mixture. For the ingredients of Treesaver and research on its ineffectiveness on the long run, see Mycorrhiza.

And yes, Pisolithus arhizus (= P. tinctorius) also grows in landscapes, but as I said before, (in The Netherlands) very rare, i.e. seldom fruiting and only associating as a pioneer successor with seedlings and young trees of indigenous Betula and Pinus species (see my Dutch website) growing in/on mining rubble hills with a pH 1-2.

So how did you determine that P. arhizus actually colonized the roots of older white oaks and that the mycelia in the rotten wood chips belonged to this ectomycorrhizal Gasteromycete and not to one or several of many other possibly present saprotrophic species decomposing and mulching the "raw" material, of which the oaks benefited by mediation of other ectomycorrhizal macrofungi (already) present in the soil ?

2. As thousands of (reviews of) field experiments have shown, short turn positive results have no predictive value for long term results and are almost always followed by detrimental results for the tree on the long run, which mostly is the outcome of our interfering with natural succession within tree species specific ecosystems and soil food webs, we are only beginning to understand.

[Fungus]

1. My goal is to foster a direct and natural connection between trees and associates, but I am not so quick to condemn "those who would seperate out trees from their associates and present what are (IMO) simplified tree 'artifacts' and the subsequent 'solutions'." If it works, great, good for them, they earned their profits.

2. Those Chinese who ... developed radial trenching using soil inoculation ...

 

1. In spite of all the field and scientific reseach proving the opposite, you still believe short term beneficial results are a guarantee for a healthy and thriving tree on the long run ?

2. Can you explain, why a picture of P. arhizus, an ectomycorrhizal macrofungus, is included in an article on laurels, which are trees associated with endomycorrhizal microfungi ?

[Fungus]

Marx's Dutch seminar on reforestation of coniferous trees on mining rubble with the "help" of Treesaver ®, a very expensive commercial product, of which he refused to "give away" the constituents, which I later "unveiled" publically in a series of articles (in Dutch) on the subject.

In the discussion afterwards he had to admit, that there was no evidence of his product being effective in soils with a pH 3 or higher and/or with other tree species then the species he planted in his field experiment as a result of the spores and hyphae of endo- and ectomycorrhizal fungi he included in the mixture. For the ingredients of Treesaver and research on its ineffectiveness on the long run, see Mycorrhiza.

 

For insiders maybe needless to say, but Marx's lecture was organised and financed by the Dutch distributor of his product, an arborist, who is "famous" for his sole interest in short term profit, i.e. making a fast buck and not in the long term health of trees.