Laetiporus decay

[Simon Rotheram]

Typo - I meant Oak

 

Its still the same question?!

[ScottF]

The branch union looked pretty ad hoc anyway, and more like a pollard or damage sprout, albeit an old one.

 

Great pics, MonkeyD.

 

As for the "ingress" of fungal pathogens, does anyone here, like me, subscribe to the idea that there's a level of opportunist spore in all wood just waiting for the right conditions and a wound, rather than being a "point of entry" for a fungus, is simply a point of entry for air, moisture etc which then alter the internal conditions of the timber and creates the ideal microclimate for one or other of these opportunist fungi, which is already there, to then multiples?

 

I did quite a lot of work on this when I was doing my Master's at Bangor. There's a mycologist called Alan Rayner who's written a lot on this, and what I was looking at experimentally seemed to bear it out pretty strongly.

 

Maybe for another thread...

[Dean Lofthouse]

I've always looked on trees defense the same as the human bodies defense, we have a protective layer of skin / bark, when that layer is breached, infection can get in.

 

It can heal without getting infected, but it can also get infected, which would depend on the enviroment it is in and the conditions

 

Stress would also weaken the trees / bodies ability to deal with a wound or infection

[David Humphries]

 

As for the "ingress" of fungal pathogens, does anyone here, like me, subscribe to the idea that there's a level of opportunist spore in all wood just waiting for the right conditions and a wound, rather than being a "point of entry" for a fungus, is simply a point of entry for air, moisture etc which then alter the internal conditions of the timber and creates the ideal microclimate for one or other of these opportunist fungi, which is already there, to then multiples?

 

 

Maybe for another thread...

 

 

Aware of the theory, that most if not all woodland angios will probably have decay fungi latently present within the functional sapwood, sitting patiently, awaiting the kick off whistle . (read it in some of Boddy's work)

 

Razor strop, Dryads saddle, possibly Pleurotus would fit the bill.

 

Although have just read that Laetiporus specifically penetrates through wounds. (Butin)

 

I seem to recall Ted Green talking around most fungi being latently opportunistic.

Seeing him later in the week, will ask him some more.

 

 

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[Will Hinchliffe]

Sooty bark disease, hypoxilon and bulgaria are all endophytic. There spores have been found in living cells and they start to grow when conditions become favourable. Im sure there are many more.

[ScottF]

Sooty bark disease, hypoxilon and bulgaria are all endophytic. There spores have been found in living cells and they start to grow when conditions become favourable. Im sure there are many more.

 

Yep, we found these and a load of other fungal taxa in a range of hard and softwood samples (temperate and tropical). I seem to remember (this is 10 years ago now) that many of the genera following the "infect from outside", anthropomorphic model were saproxylic.

 

All interesting stuff, eh?

[David Humphries]

Recent failure, attributable to the brown rot of Laetiporus.

 

Full(ish) crown, thin residual wall

 

Fantastic habitat tree

 

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