fungal induced habitat

[David Humphries]

.................Red oak with long term Laetiporus sulphureus colonisation.

 

 

........assessing a recently detached limb from this tree (socket failure due to brown rot).

 

 

Sent Jack up with the Resistograph to help us assess the level of dysfunction and decay in the remaining stem.

 

Three drills - two either side of the lower woodpecker holes where the Laetiporus was fruiting and led directly to the limb failure, and another one half way up the stem between the lower and upper sets of holes.

 

 

Drill one showing about 8cm of sound residual wall thickness.

 

 

Drill two showing about 4cm of sound residual wall thickness.

 

 

Drill three (which exited out the other side of the tree after 30cm) shows both sides of the stem and their associated residual walls and also the decayed core.

 

.

[sean]

I like this thread. Great Woodpecker shots.

 

Here's a woodpecker hole now colonised by bees with what appears to be Ganoderma.

[David Humphries]

Nice Sean

 

 

 

 

 

.

[Jake Andrews]

Nice shot Sean, great eco system going on there.

Is that your resistograph David or was it hired? Iv only ever seen one used once and the guy using never gave much away about the device, was about 6 years ago now I guess.

[David Humphries]

Think we've had it about 4/5 years Jake, replaced our old Sibtec DIgital Micro probe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

[Jake Andrews]

That's cool, do you find the device accurate when you get to dissect a cross section or has it got it wrong on a few?

[David Humphries]

That's cool, do you find the device accurate when you get to dissect a cross section or has it got it wrong on a few?

 

Pretty accurate tbh, though it does depend on type and amount of decay.

 

You'll have to excuse the quality of this image as it's a photo taken from an article we did in last summers AA magazine entitled "interpreting decay"

We showed a number of cross sections of lime with Kretzschmaria decay, the oak pictured below, and an ash with the White rot decay of Ganoderma.

 

The bottom left corner cross section of a Laetiporus colonised oak limb corresponds perfectly with the resistograph opposite. (Read from right to left)

 

So much so, that it shows where the needle comes out of the wood in to nothing for the last 7.5 cm.

 

It shows the first 15cm of sound wood, followed by 12 cm of brown rot, followed by 3/4cm of sound wood.

 

 

.

[Jake Andrews]

A lot more accurate than I thought.

What size drill bit do you have with it?

Also, is it used as a last resort for fear of breaching wall 4 or do you prefer to see what's going on to be able to initiate remedial works, if any?

[David Humphries]

The needle is 40 cm long and a couple of millimetres wide.

 

I manage a huge tree population that has epic amounts of dysfunction and associated decay, so to be quite frank I'm not entirely worried about breaching the odd Codit wall here and there, unless it's a highly valued young mature vital specimen.

 

If I need to know what's going on inside due to target safety issues or the actual trees stability then I utilise the technology I have at hand, especially as it costs a fair bit to recalibrate it every year. No point paying for it and not using it.

 

I've done far more invasive things to tress over the last couple of decades

 

 

.

[David Humphries]

When cutting in to the branch collar and not prunning to BS 3998 has its perks from an Avians perspective, a decade or so down the line.

 

Brown rot of Laetiporus decay is a fair shout I'd guess.

 

.

Edited April 14, 2016 by David Humphries