Trees in Towns 2

[Gary Prentice]

Not really

 

Imagine the great fire took with it any old trees that had escaped the constant development of the city.

 

 

 

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Doh:blushing:

[David Humphries]

Doh:blushing:

 

It's such a dynamic city, it's amazing how much of the older versions within it still survive really.

 

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[Paul Barton]

I'm easy on this, all good.

 

I am however starting to think about the personal project assignment and have a bit of an idea starting to formulate. I may wish to ask a few questions and get some opinions on it in a few weeks. Has anyone got access to Mark Johnsons article, which I think was in the horticultural press about the survey and the industries reaction to it?

 

Do you mean this one? It's about the industry but not specifically about TIT2.

Johnston 2011 Future of the Arboricultural Industry.pdf

[daltontrees]

The size part of that equation never really made much sense to me. A 'small' dead limb that drops from 100ft has the potential to harm more than a larger branch that falls 10ft.

 

 

I shouldn't have been so imprecise with my choice of words. M/C doesn't say size, it says severity of harm. Which QTRA equates to size, an obvious limitation for the reasons you indicate and for other reasons I can think of.

[daltontrees]

We're not aspiring to eliminate risk Jules, we're managing risk.

 

If we were governed by assessments weighted toward quantitative we would be fighting an endless dynamic list of works. Our focus is more on target and likelihood.

 

The priority works list is reviewed monthly and contain works that are required over an 18 month period.

Some of these works slip lower down the list when newer works are identified with a greater risk associated.

 

 

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I agree, risk only needs to be managed to an acceptable level. Any system that emphasises target will in my experience go a long way to avoiding unnecessary inspections.

 

I'm not necessarily advocating quantitative, a low/medium/high target presence is often enough but it can definitely be combined with a minimum DBH cut-off to further avoid unnecessary inspections.

[Gary Prentice]

Do you mean this one? It's about the industry but not specifically about TIT2.

 

Thats the one thank you, I came across a reference to it whilst researching the 'letter to the government representative and the importance of arboriculturists in the formation of policy' assignment.

 

I don't know why, but I thought it was in a horticultural paper. Too many thoughts running through my head - I need to go and climb a few trees or something:thumbup1:

[agg221]

With regards to the size of trees - it make sense to me to have a minimum tree size for annual inspections...soon enough young trees with high growth potential will need to be included as they reach the minimum criteria but small ornamental trees may never need inspecting.

 

...if this discussion runs, perhaps we should move it to a new thread so as not to hijack Gary's Trees in Towns II thread which is worthy of its own discussion...

 

Since Gary doesn't mind his thread being slightly diverted

 

David - one related question that interests me here is whether you factor in formative pruning? I'm particularly thinking about work to reduce the likelihood of storing up future problems, eg removing co-dominant leaders to prevent subsequent formation of weak unions.

 

The reason for the question here is that this type of work would typically be best undertaken on the smaller trees, which are the ones that would fall outside your standard inspection criteria stated above.

 

Alec

[David Humphries]

Hi Alec,

 

we don't plant that many new trees to be honest, but when young trees do come in they are hopefully from stock that are already formatively pruned at nursery, if any get through we take out any obviously potential defects we find.

 

Also, we undertake ad-hoc formative pruning on larger trees that have escaped attention, like here on this Redwood, which had a co-dom.

 

This type of work would normally be randomly added to a works list while we are in a particular area, rather than proscribed from the walk over inspection regime.

 

 

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