treeseer

Why does he want it gone? Callus on both sides; strength loss minimal. Light pruning should suffice; cuts <10 cm.

What evidence is there of fungal activity? The inner tissue is cracked in the middle of the abrasion, where the impact would have been hardest. In the US this would be called 'grader gash'. Unless there is decay I am missing? To find out more, clean the wound by removing dead tissue, carefully.

The lateral orientation suggests physical impact; fairly recent.

Cryptostroma is the genus, because the fungal stroma are 'hidden' in the inner bark? A bad actor in Populus here. Never seen it in Acer, that I know of. Hope I never do!

Whole limb removal would create a bigger hazard in that dodgy fork higher up.

"The corky areas make me wonder if it has had something tied around it and the bark has grown over it." yes or Could that be the tree's reaction to some other damage? Squirrel? Have a closer look and take a tap next time you pass by. Interesting growth; I've seen the like on other species but no SC here.

Island, in the 6-month inspections, how will you reassess the growth of woundwood? Calipers at marked locations is one option. This is just as/more important than measuring the rot imo. Pics of course are good to document. gaz, yes the lack of mathematical understanding is one impediment to pull test technology, but another is the assumptions and generalisations inherent. Last talk I saw by Erk Brudi was on measuring the strength of Tilia. After 45 minutes what was most clear was the huge variability, which caused me to doubt the usefulness of aiming for precision. Tracking data leads to so many rabbit holes.

There must be a tremendous reward for delving so deep into all that minutiae, with so little hope of learning anything useful about tree care. Will 72 virgins be waiting when you hand it in?

Well done, scotspine!

Well I'm not sure it's right but I am sure we must heed the words in your sig line Mr. gaz! Crazy degree of Data Envy in our 'soft science' of arb!

No doubt it is a bad actor! Thanks David; great pics of advanced fb's in interior. Climbers Rock!

As noted the Bartlett/Mattheck formulae do not factor in wood strength, so they mislead. Trees are not pipes. As long as the woundwood around the cavity is intact, the tree is probably stronger than an undecayed specimen. Mangoes are definitely tough; worked a lot on them in Florida and the Caribbean area.

Sorry we bounced from roots to branches there. Back to roots: Yes those are lovely pictures that may represent regrowth after the shock of transplanting with a tree spade. I've seen cuts from other pruning that had no regrowth at the wound sites, but these were made to laterals. They did have good closure. Watson also reports that new growth from inner, proximal growth points was rapid. But that's not so easy to relate in imagery. Still waiting for support for the speculation that more exposed cambium = more vigorous regrowth. Did your research turn up any support for this hypothesis?

"They where both on the way out with 1/2 the crown of each tree dead." One way to avoid trouble is to look and see why some parts are dead. It may be inaccurate to judge the trees 'on the way out'. If you can't justify your decision to fell that is indeed cause for concern.

"And when we do want a vigorous growth response we might work in a bit of natural fracture veteranisation (acknowledging that we probably increase the decay risk). All this is, of course, is just controlling the amount of exposed cambium. More exposed cambium typically means more meristem differentiation and more regrowth" 'Typically' seems to imply some kind of experience. I've looked hard and asked everyone I can think of, but seen no indication anywhere that exposed cambium = more vigorous regrowth. Did your research turn up any support for this hypothesis? The vigorous regrowth that we want comes from dormant buds at interior nodes.

The Arboriculture book by Harris et al is still a very good guide, but yes the ISA study guide does teach to that test very well. Not always current info; as soon as you learn it, you'll want to recheck their generalisations. I thought you brits added a 'u' to every 'o', like 'neighbour'.

Off topic but is the trunk of that beech pushing on the roof? I typically advise to prune the building, but that might not be accepted here.

My thought was the thread was all over the place. It seems there's been some bad work and bad overreaction in Leeds; here's hoping they can get back on track.Specs are not hard to write; here's a US spec Give Trees a Chance! Does retrenchment pruning go beyond the ANSI A300 Tree Care Standard? No. Retrenching is 100% within the A300, when the objective is established, the requirements or “shalls” are met, and specifications are communicated. Standard Operating Procedure: SCOPE: An oak that is 6’ wide at the base. ~5’ of that is hollow. Extensive root damage. OBJECTIVE: Reduce the load and the risk by retrenching the crown. Lower maintenance. SPECIFICATIONS: 1. Remove all dead branches >1” diameter. 2. Reduce downward and horizontal segments of overextended branches, clearing the branches below by 2’-4’. Cuts <3” to upright laterals, <8% total foliage 3. Thin crowded branches back to the collars. <4% total foliage, <3” cuts 4. Reduce declining leaders 3’-6’. Smallest cut possible, near vigorous growth or buds. 5. In an area between 3’ and 20’from the trunk, use air/water tool to make holes 18” apart, >2” wide and >12” deep. Force 50% compost/50% soil conditioner under pressure into the holes, in effect brewing compost tea on site. Mulch with 2” woodchips.

Athens is a horror; they top orange trees, Cercis, everything. No wonder the country's broke! Here's an example of a US pruning spec. I use < and > and ranges a lot, to allow a little flexibility but not too much! Two VERY big companies had recommended felling, but the town accepted the below spec, and paid ~400 pounds for a pruning that will last 5-10 years. Specs should fit on a notecard to fit in workers' pockets. Give Trees a Chance! Does retrenchment pruning go beyond the ANSI A300 Tree Care Standard? No. Retrenching is 100% within the A300, when the objective is established, the requirements or “shalls” are met, and specifications are communicated. Standard Operating Procedure: SCOPE: An oak that is 6’ wide at the base. ~5’ of that is hollow. Extensive root damage. OBJECTIVE: Reduce the load and the risk by retrenching the crown. Lower maintenance. SPECIFICATIONS: 1. Remove all dead branches >1” diameter. 2. Reduce downward and horizontal segments of overextended branches, clearing the branches below by 2’-4’. Cuts <3” to upright laterals, <8% total foliage 3. Thin crowded branches back to the collars. <4% total foliage, <3” cuts 4. Reduce declining leaders 3’-6’. Smallest cut possible, near vigorous growth or buds. 5. In an area between 3’ and 20’ from the trunk, use air/water tool to make holes 18” apart, >2” wide and >12” deep. Force 50% compost/50% soil conditioner under pressure into the holes, in effect brewing compost tea on site. Mulch with 2” woodchips. RETRENCHING HOLLOW TREES FOR LIFE 131226 tcia.docx

Absolutely, any salesman should find out the client's motivation behind the request. This just helps guide future sales! Discussing with the client their reasons for wanting it removed and the different options that are available, is certainly the best way of dealing with the situation. Who said crown reduction was bad??? MM you made that up.

"Showing good vitality - occlusions are sound and look good. Vascular 'piping' has found its way around the wound and looking at the crown shape and extension growth is doing well. A light prune to tighten the crown and 'offer' stability may be otherwise why the need to do anything?" Francis Schwarze, who knows more about wood decay than all of us put together, once showed a class a series of pics of trees (assorted species, soft and hard) with occluded bark around old stem wounds just like that. He asked us to guess the extent % of rot in the cross-section. Guesses ranged from 20-80%, most around 60%. He then showed us the cross-sections after felling--ALL were <10%, ALL had clearly walled off the wound. In TRAQ training I heard an apparently uninfected mechanical injury referred to as a 'canker'. I shot up my hand and asked, Where's the infection? The response was a muddled reference about it 'probably in there somewhere' That scheme needs overhauling. We are mis-taught when we are trained to focus on the stem and the obvious. We fail to see the entire tree system when this myopia blinds us. It's self-delusion to guess what will happen in 10 years. We need to refine our assignments to what we really can know.

Indeed. Parenchyma in wood can create new cambium, if the gnawing stops long enough. So a repellent is not out of the question. Cockatoos on eucs also go to forks; sweeter.

Well Jules that may be the flaw in the "Go straight to the Conclusion and skip all that mess in the middle" scheme of assimilating research. P 55-56 or so has the juiciest bits.

Kd on Acer is not good, but i reduced a big A rubrum with it last year. It may be a long term fix, if the crown regenerates, and the roots compartmentalise. But I'm not betting on that... I did spec 30%, which i think was useful, AFTER saying cuts <10 cm, lengths <5m, and location (top and S and E sides). Chris you are right in relating Frank's data, it agrees with Goodfellow's, and others. re the beech, "I would not make this recommendation though without testing the t/R with a resi drill. And even then I would be dubious" What is dubious is this reliance on t/r, which has been shown to be rather sketchy 'science', with no data applying to dbh >75 cm. Even if the picus would not work, a mallet works every time! O and how can a report be submitted with no images? I thought they were required to aid the owner's decisions. Goodfellow Branch Failure.pdf

You're welcome David; a drop in the bucket compared to what you provide. There is more guidance in the BS on construction than in 3998, I assume?