Fungus on Scot’s Pine - serious?

[hardtop110]

The stem is about 1m in diameter, the tree is about 25m tall.

 

There appears to be a couple of patches, one at the bottom of the stem and another smaller patch about 2.5 m above it.

 

Is it serious? It’s not my tree, but my caravan is parked next to it and will be until October.

 

Whaddya think?

 

 

 

 

[Perkins]

Looks like young growth of Chicken of the woods, Laetiporous sulphureus.

[sloth]

Phaeoleus schweinitzii. Brown rot of heartwood, can lead to brittle fracture. Certainly worth a closer inspection, looks a sizable tree...

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Arbtalk mobile app

[Andrew Gale]

Seconded for Sloths comments

[hardtop110]

Cheers guys. My fears have been confirmed. I'll get onto them to get it inspected properly. It's a big old tree though and it'd be a shame if it had to come down.

[Chris at eden]

Could be either of the two mentioned above. Laetiporus is less common on conifer than broadleaf. Phaeolus is a conifer specialist. They both cause brown rot so there would be little external biomechanical signs of the extent of the defect but ultimatly, they both make trees fail.

[nepia]

Thirded re Phaeolus. I've encountered it recently in a large Black Pine - now three bare stems @~15' - and a large larch that's suffered a huge tearout due to brown cubical rot about 20' from the ground.

The Pine was picus tested and the recommendation was 'immediate heavy reduction or removal'.

Phaeolus is not good news I'm afraid.

[openspaceman]

Thirded re Phaeolus. I've encountered it recently in a large Black Pine - now three bare stems @~15' - and a large larch that's suffered a huge tearout due to brown cubical rot about 20' from the ground.

The Pine was picus tested and the recommendation was 'immediate heavy reduction or removal'.

Phaeolus is not good news I'm afraid.

 

I agree, once you get fruiting bodies of dyers mazegill it's often not long after that the stem buckles

[nod]

Awesome body language in the third image.

Defo Phaeolus- move the caravan! :-0

[Perkins]

I would agree, the remains of last years bracket is black, rather than white. so Phaeolus it is, shame.