Peter

That was built for a LA to chip household green waste into bins. Mug easier than manoeuvring a towed chipper round little side streets.

Never wear mine to work, mostly they get ruined ripping out ceilings or stripping render. Good idea though, I'll see if I have my green 2006 shirt from Kibblestone.

6 years for me I think.

Nonsense, the Office suite was written for Mac. Pages is the mac word processor for iPad. Get the right apps and you can do almost anything with the iPad.

I play bass but I'm not a musician.....

Rule number one, very very fresh eggs. Many ways to poach an egg, I dont go for the cheffy swirly vortex thing myself, just bring the water to barely simmering, turn the heat off and crack the eggs straight in. Really fresh eggs ie day old will take about ten minutes to set the white properly but still leave the yolk runny.

I believe it was a similar size to the one at that site near Bury. The cost implications of line closure etc certainly puts the cost of surveying and tree maintenance into perspective.

Road no, railway yes. One of the contractors I work with did a spell of surveying for Network Rail, and they were specifically instructed to check trackside pops for borer damage due to one coming over onto a line.

Good info David. The bottom line seems to be that 99% of pops in this area have borer holes, but only some of them have decay. The 2 may be linked, but you can't assume decay is present because there are holes, and the boring on its own will not cause stem breakage. If this summer is hot and dry it could be a good year for the hornet moths.

I'll take my camera and get a better shot when I go back, lighting was tricky when I was there yesterday, really strong shafts of sunlight and really dim elsewhere.

I also looked at some other small pops that had failed at the base yesterday, one of them had these fruiting bodies at the base, any thoughts fungusheads?!

More info from Forest Research: "Our experience of damage by hornet clearwing moth is that it is not the reason for stem failure, even when there are many moth exit holes in the base of the tree and damage appears to be quite extensive. We monitored a large number of poplars with and without hornet clearwing infestation over a 6 year period between 1999 and 2005 and despite a number of trees falling because of strong winds, in none of these cases could failure be attributed to the damage caused by the moth. In some cases, trees snapped 1-3m above the ground despite the base of the stem being riddled with hornet clearwing moth holes. Generally, larva of hornet clearwing tunnel just beneath the bark and in the outer layers of the wood and they don’t tunnel deeply enough to cause any major structural weakness. Poplars that we saw that had failed had extensive butt and root rot, with large amounts of dead wood in the base, and this appeared to be the primary reason why they had failed."

Going back to the burning question, it certainly is possible with enough time and effort. As a side note, sodium chlorate was never approved to kill stumps as it can make them highly flammable.

So as long as all climbers turn up with at least one piece of non CE marked kit, you wont need insurance. Winner

Dont think it will still be there then, but I might nip back in autumn and see if there are any other trees with it.

Wouldn't have said it was that mushy really.

When does pholotia fruit?

Its not far from your house David, I'll pm you the location if you want to go and look at it before someone tidies it all up. Not heard of any larger trees failing interestingly enough, but that tree is the "smoking gun" I'v been looking for, so I'm very pleased. It seems there is no research on stem failure related to boring damage, all the FC research relates to crown dieback. What I want to know is whether increased density of bore holes makes failure more likely, and if so at what point do you decide to remove? What would be the best way to detect decay of that kind in a live tree?

Yes, that is a lot of holes, but I would say pretty much any poplar in East Anglia will have some present. I have anecdotal evidence that smaller trees affected by boring have failed due to white rot at the same level as the boring, this is exactly what happened to the tree I found today. Whether to rot is co-incidental or not remains to be seen.

Came across this beauty today.

Vosa have said there is no requirement to put vehicles of less than 3500 mam onto an o license, regardless of what they are towing. Can't reference that off the top my head but I did look into it a little while ago.

Robert, have a look at Oxford welders, they are made in the uk, heavy duty, and not ridiculously expensive. Think I paid under a grand for mine, single phase 280 amp, branded as portamig. There are several companies on t'interweb selling them under different brand names.

Same here Rich, had mine about 5 years and it has been an animal straight out the box. Even ran a 25" for 2 weeks felling big pops when it was my only saw.

Bit more info here, pages 6-9. http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/FR0102pests.pdf/$FILE/FR0102pests.pdf

Lots of pops been felled round here due to boring, theory is that as all the boring activity happens in the lowest 300mm of the stem, enough material can be removed to compromise the tree. I would like to see some evidence/research though.