Last Beech Standing

[Austin Spanners]

Great thread, I would like to add my own experience. Not very interesting but may be of interest from a non-arborist point of view.

 

I managed a 300 acre beech woodland on the north downs for nearly 20 years. The site is well used by the public, being both a public open space and Local Nature Reserve. The woodland was hit hard by the hurricanes of 1987 and '91 with some compartments losing 100% of the mature beech.

Those trees that remained had, in the main, sustained some damage from falling adjacent trees.

My intention, at that time, was to retain as many of the remaining mature trees as possible. This meant managing the public, rather than the trees. It was important to be able to move paths away from trees in decline, standing dead trees and those with suspect limbs.

Now, the point I'm labouring towards here is; many remaining trees became hosts to a variety of fungus, with meripilus being particularly obvious. Of particular interest were three large Georgian boundary trees ( I will include pics when I can find them) all within 50 yards of each other, each with large merip bodies around the base. One of the fruit bodies so large that it became of local interest.

These trees are all situated on thin soil above chalk. There was an adjacent bridleway (later moved away from trees). However only one of these trees failed, the other two remaining are there today, with merip fruiting regularly.

The merip fruits are however, declining in size due, I suspect, to the reduction of available nutrient material.

The way I see it, having watched this woodland over many years, is like this; trees are like people. There is not one panacea that suits them all. All the trees growing, growing in the same medium, affected by the same pathogen are not going to behave in the same manner, despite the fact that they are all connected. There can only ever be a general rule in terms of its physiology etc..

Unfortunately, few people/organisations are prepared to throw cash at tree retention/ preservation allied to the knee jerk reaction that follows H&S in this blame riddled culture we now find ourselves operating.

 

Now, in 2005, I left this site and now inspect trees across all our sites and my desire to retain old trees has waned somewhat. I now suffer from a little known psychological disorder known as Tree Paranoia and willingly condem a tree where the target is immovable.

[David Humphries]

Could you explain pruning 'dependant on terminal bud scar length'? I'm not sure what that means.

 

I'm refering to the length between this years apical bud to last years one.

This would give an indication of how vigorous the current years growth was and in turn, how helathy that part of the tree is in relation to it's connectivity to it's particular root morphology.

 

 

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[paradise]

Aha, I'm with you. Thanks for explaining to a slow person

[White Noise]

Hi David I have found this post to be very interesting .I for one have been trying to expand my knowledge on fruitification . I am confident on all the common types . Although I am trying to further my knowledge so that I,m confident at managing trees with fungi . So as to prolong any felling work and keep the trees as hazard free as possible .

[Heads up]

Excellent thread MD very interesting, keep it up:thumbup:

[David Humphries]

............

In the mean while im interested to see how long this tree lasts as its making an interesting study.

keep up the good work guys

 

Posted 21/12/08..........

 

 

 

Update........here she is from today Matty.

 

Getting on for 12 years with Merip fruiting and 6 years on from the reduction/topping

 

 

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[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Ive read this for the first time today, great thread and I really must spend more time looking through the archives!

 

One thing that strikes me is that I knew nothing about all the info in this thread, yet it mirrors my own views and observations from 10-15 years of observing Merip in an ancient Beech woodland.

 

I would also say that of the failures posted in this thread, they appear to have been one sided root plates due to one being beside a river, 2 being beside a wall, and judging by the large and deep soil profile removed in these failures due in a large part to soil moisture levels decreasing soil shear strength on the static root plate.

 

Im betting both trees where unpruned too.

 

Crown reduction does alleviate a lot more than just sail area, it also reduces "burden" and transport distances, mimicking the natural proscess of a veteran tree growing down, and decreases the static root plate dimension required to conform to soil shear mechanics, meaning that a reduction in canopy leaves a stronger root ball.

 

One of the most important VISUAL things to note is thos living long term with merrip develop a "traffic cone" root flare and surface root structure, a highly stable form, when did you last see a traffic cone blow over? or a hat stand "evenly" loaded with coates, the effective wieght of coates is to push down on the Trafic cone base and INCREASES stability.

 

In the traffic cone form i think failure comes via "resonance" and a reduced crown would not build up such resonant movement further increasing its stability.

 

If you want arboriculture to advance then open your minds, this game is becoming ever more tech and scientific, pick up your games or get left behind riding the wake.

 

wether you like it or not, merip is no longer justification for the death nell, or rather they can often be retained if desireable and effort is invested.:001

_cool:

 

Great thread david, I like it I like it a lot, and gutted i missed the merip seminar mentioned.

[David Humphries]

It's been a while since I updated this thread (5 years to be precise )

 

Went and had a look at this tree earlier today.

 

Still standing & going strong 15 + years with the Meripilus colonisation and 11 years since the reduction.........

 

 

No fruiting currently but I recall that it did last year.

 

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[treeseer]

Thanks for the followup; fungi and trees coexist.

[David Humphries]

Thanks for the followup; fungi and trees coexist.

 

They sure can Guy, certainly in this case.

 

Even considering the excessive reduction, the factor that I find most interesting is how isolated the tree actually is. It stands on top of a hill and has no sizeable neighbours protecting it against the prevailing wind direction.

 

It's withstood a number of significant wind events over those years.

 

Hope you are well

 

 

 

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