MASSARIA as a drought response??

[coleman]

HI all, just thought id pipe up about how i hav'nt seen hardly any massaria this winter compared to the last one or the one before. Is it possible that Massaria being an endophyte, is just the trees natural drought response mechanism??? As we have had a very wet year has this "turned it off"?? Ive climbed a hell of a lot of mature planes this winter and ive only encountered it once, a tiny fraction of previous years.

[David Humphries]

Interesting point, may be a factor.

 

Not sure where you are climbing? but a lot of Planes in central/northern London had a reduced instance of Massaria reported due in part to having been worked (dead wooded or even pollarded) hard in the previous couple of years. This certaianly from LB Islington.

 

Where I work at Hampstead (CoL), we found large numbers of branches with Massaria last year. This due to now inspecting for it more.

 

 

 

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[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

HI all, just thought id pipe up about how i hav'nt seen hardly any massaria this winter compared to the last one or the one before. Is it possible that Massaria being an endophyte, is just the trees natural drought response mechanism??? As we have had a very wet year has this "turned it off"?? Ive climbed a hell of a lot of mature planes this winter and ive only encountered it once, a tiny fraction of previous years.

 

absolutely in keeping with my views, also tend sto be shaded limbs, small inner branches mostly:thumbup1:

 

just my LIMITED experience and opinion

[coleman]

Interesting point, may be a factor.

 

Not sure where you are climbing? but a lot of Planes in central/northern London had a reduced instance of Massaria reported due in part to having been worked (dead wooded or even pollarded) hard in the previous couple of years. This certaianly from LB Islington.

 

Where I work at Hampstead (CoL), we found large numbers of branches with Massaria last year. This due to now inspecting for it more.

 

 

 

.

I live in in hampstead as it goes! All the trees ive climbed have been in central london. Some very mature. We climb 30+ mature planes on one sensitive site every year because of massaria so i get the feel for it. Yesterday i was checking out planes in a large communal garden in kensington that had been known to of had massaria and so far nothing. I was off today due to the tax man checking my records but im back there tomorrow, ill let ya know if i find any!

[coleman]

absolutely in keeping with my views, also tend sto be shaded limbs, small inner branches mostly:thumbup1:

 

just my LIMITED experience and opinion

 

That goes with all my experience.

Ive also seen it spread from bad pruning cuts.

I always wondered if we tested all the small diameter deadwood from around the canopy for massaria to futher back up the idea that its just the trees mechanism for shedding unwanted branches. It target prunes perfectly!

[coleman]

Out of the 8 mature (30-40m) planes we did over the last 3 days that had showed signs of massaria last year, only one was showing this year. 3 x 80mm branches surprisingly @ 28M!!!!!

[Paul Jenks]

At the arb conference 2 years ago the chap from the royal parks said they were going to install irrigation to many of the more susceptable trees for this very reason.

[BenR]

I remember the year before I left most of the planes I got up were showing signs. Good to hear its not so bad at the moment. Had a go on a spiderjack up a nasty macrocarpa yesterday coleman. Was horrible and slipping constantly haha! Each to there own. Hopefully see you up a tree or at one of your gigs soon mate. Glad to see all the studying is paying off! I need to get myself on a course somewhere.