Large Scotspine opinions please

[charlie6]

Here's one that failed

[treeseer]

What's the client's objective?

 

There is no 'buckling'; as noted that reactive growth is a strength GAIN feature.

Pines tolerate fill better than most trees.

Sell an aerial assessment and load reduction. Repeat bi/triannually for the rest of your career.

Or rape and run aka fell. This crazy thread is a poster child against defect-driven assessment!

[Tim Stobart Tree Surgery]

Here's one that failed

 

Is that soil built up around the base? It looks like it completely lacks any butressing if not!

[daltontrees]

I can only hope that all the usual 'fell it' comments are jokes. Not much help to you anyway. Based on 2 photographs and the mention of a road, I can't see how anyone could reach that conclusion anyway unless they think it's cute to kill trees, and put customers to expense, unnecessarily.

 

As ever, tree defects are meaningless unless the consequences of tree failure are unacceptable. A minor defect in a tree beside a motorway may be significant but a massive cavity beside a farm track may not be.

 

Fill? I'd bet that embankment has been in that form since before the tree.

Lean - trivial for Scots Pine.

Lack of buttressing - straight up and down on the compresson side is usually as much as is needed on a slope.

Dead branches - more normal than abnormal low down on a scots pine.

Damage to bark - can't see it clearly on photos but there looks to be no signs of buckling or exposed wood. A vehicle could have reversed into it.

Gold paint - no idea, but as mentioned by someone coud be lichen. Slight possibility of it being the remains of the point of attachment of a fungus. The only one I can imagine it being would be Phaeolus schweinitzii. Sounding with mallet would show this up or any other significant internal rot. Look also for recently shed fruiting bodies. I found a few last week at the base of a pine, so the frost hasn't detroyed them quite yet.

Vitality - can't tell from photos.

Leverage and wind loading - can't tell from photos.

Foliage diseases - always worth a look on pine for Dithostroma.

Shot holes - I can't see them. Tomicus piniperda is rarely fatal, but the best evidence is not in the stem but in the crown and by finding hollowed broken young shoots on the ground.

 

So the question I would ask is "why fell?" If it's because defects are confirmed and the prevailing weather would take it towards a valuable target like an occupied building, you're back to finding a good reason not to fell. Otherwise, what direction would failure take it, what will get hit and is it likely that anyone or anything will be there when it happens? If this is low value or a very occasional presence, there isn't much reason to fell. In law, anyway.

 

If the reason to fell is to separate the customer from his money, well you wouldn't have needed Arbtalk for help in that sort of decision.

[treesrus]

Daltontrees gives the most sensible, accurate and relevent response throughout this entire thread, and to which i entirely agree.

[Tim Stobart Tree Surgery]

Daltontrees gives the most sensible, accurate and relevent response throughout this entire thread, and to which i entirely agree.

 

[Stephen Blair]

Thanks for the replies

The tree is leaning towards a log cabin with permanent residents with the prevailing wind behind it.

Cabins about 30ft from the base of the tree.

The rd was put in long after the tree was there.

[openspaceman]

 

Gold paint - no idea, but as mentioned by someone coud be lichen.

Shot holes - I can't see them. Tomicus piniperda is rarely fatal, but the best evidence is not in the stem but in the crown and by finding hollowed broken young shoots on the ground.

 

I took it to be an old resin exudate and yes I can see the shot holes and thought them more likely to be a wood wasp.

[Darrin Turnbull]

Leave it the cabin might blow away.

[charlie6]

Is that soil built up around the base? It looks like it completely lacks any butressing if not!

 

It is. The developer levelled out the area 10 years ago and looks to have raised the soil around the tree by about 500 mm. Interesting to get a exact time scale.