Expansion cracks?

[Matthew Arnold]

I spotted these cracks with black deposits below a set of stazi ears on one of our large Beech trees. They got off pretty lightly in the storms with very few limb snap outs, just copious amounts of deadwood. To my untrained eye i am sure these are not expansion cracks as they usually appear more slowly and heal quicker than these. The fourth and fifth pic you can see last years expansion cracks. Any ideas?

Edited April 15, 2014 by Matthew Arnold

[treeseer]

I agree the crack looks suspicious. Cabling would take ~1.5 hours and <$100 USD materials. We can schedule that mid-May if you like.

[Jake Andrews]

I agree the crack looks suspicious. Cabling would take ~1.5 hours and <$100 USD materials. We can schedule that mid-May if you like.

 

Don't you mean two hours labour?

Not sure if you factored in travel, don't cost yourself treeseer:001_tt2:

J:thumbup1:

[Paul Jenks]

What are the targets? They look like woodland trees. Do nothing. If you're concerned, climb up the tree, brace yourself across the stems and push them apart. With someone watching the union. If it moves alarmingly, consider some mitigating works.

[treeseer]

What are the targets? They look like woodland trees. Do nothing. If you're concerned, climb up the tree, brace yourself across the stems and push them apart. With someone watching the union. If it moves alarmingly, consider some mitigating works.

 

Excellent advice, this 'push test'. o and Jake, Dorset's not too far from where I'll be next month. re targets, the there are the surrounding trees, and this tree itself to consider (a grievous oversight in some 'target rating' systems )

 

A coincidence; I just noticed a picture of a similar feature on a beech, which Detter put a red flag on. Page 50 here

December 2012

[Matthew Arnold]

What are the targets? They look like woodland trees. Do nothing. If you're concerned, climb up the tree, brace yourself across the stems and push them apart. With someone watching the union. If it moves alarmingly, consider some mitigating works.

 

The targets are woodland trees and a well used path which can't be diverted unfortunately. We are looking to brace it as soon as possible.

[Matthew Arnold]

Had our two TO's come out and the site ranger responsible for the site. The prognosis is either fell or brace. If we reduce it we lessen the risk of it failing a the union as the cracks are structural and not cambial. We would rather brace it but the TO wasn't keen on it. So we'll be dropping it sadly.

[treeseer]

We would rather brace it but the TO wasn't keen on it.

Why not? Lack of familiarity (aka the 'i' word)?

 

The TO MUST realise that felling this tree increases the risk of every adjacent tree.

 

Sweet dreams to the TO.

 

So much for TOs in the UK having a clue about arboriculture. Even in the backwoods of the US this would be an abysmal judgment.

[David Humphries]

Guy, I think you make an overly generalistic swipe at British TO's with that statement, which I'm guessing is mostly tongue in cheek.

 

I do however agree with your sentiment on the decision to remove a tree like this one though.

 

It appears (from the photos) to be very sheltered by its neighbours which collectively help protect it from wind load which I imagine is the real threat to the this tree, particularly with its fastigiate nature as opposed to a wide canopy with weighted lever arms where gravity would be the main protagonist.

 

it's also just a woodland tree with in my opinion a low risk of actually failing at the precise moment a random pedestrian would be going pass. I think it would perhaps take a pretty strong gale to break that union and that type of event would certainly lower the occupancy rate on a footpath within a woodland environment.

 

I'm sure the decision has been made with the hindsight of local information such as population numbers, local failure history, budget constraints etc.

 

 

 

Matthew, if it were possible (and there was space to do so) I would be looking at the removal of this tree as an opportunity to pull that union to failure with a PTO winch. This would provide valuable information as to how strong/weak this union actually is and could be a rare experience to learn from for all concerned from inspectors to managers.

 

 

Regards

 

David

[MATTMOSS]

Guy, I think you make an overly generalistic swipe at British TO's with that statement, which I'm guessing is mostly tongue in cheek.

 

I do however agree with your sentiment on the decision to remove a tree like this one though.

 

It appears (from the photos) to be very sheltered by its neighbours which collectively help protect it from wind load which I imagine is the real threat to the this tree, particularly with its fastigiate nature as opposed to a wide canopy with weighted lever arms where gravity would be the main protagonist.

 

it's also just a woodland tree with in my opinion a low risk of actually failing at the precise moment a random pedestrian would be going pass. I think it would perhaps take a pretty strong gale to break that union and that type of event would certainly lower the occupancy rate on a footpath within a woodland environment.

 

I'm sure the decision has been made with the hindsight of local information such as population numbers, local failure history, budget constraints etc.

 

 

 

Matthew, if it were possible (and there was space to do so) I would be looking at the removal of this tree as an opportunity to pull that union to failure with a PTO winch. This would provide valuable information as to how strong/weak this union actually is and could be a rare experience to learn from for all concerned from inspectors to managers.

 

 

Regards

 

David

 

I totally agree with that David