treeseer

A client showed me a bag of debris pulled off the root of an oak that was wounded when they build some stairs. It had the brittle black shoestrings in it, no conk. Sorry, she tossed it before I got a pic. The root sounds hollow but the trunk does not. What should we do?

Gad. As much as I love the lil mosquito munchers, from the US view that is regs run amok; all the more essential to make them homes in the trees before the project falls under the radar--or is that sonar? --of the local authorities. countrryboy; glad that may be of use. since our furry friends roost in vertical slits, maybe just cutting in that direction would suffice. Also, that would much lessen strength loss in the host tree; could even be done to a living tree imo. Check the Kenyon's work in full if you have time; my cutnpaste/ interpretation is surely lacking useful details. They'd no doubt be glad to respond to any queries, as this was clearly a heartfelt mission on their part. Tell em i really liked their demo at ArborCamp 2011, and will be baaack!

That last oak is cracked! It may be time to install some support, so those parts remain close together, if longevity is desired. Perhaps an article on support is needed in that journal, to shift the paradigm toward bracing as an option. Couldn't find the Lonsdale paper in that link; just a lot of golden opportunities to spend $46 USD per article. Time to join and subscribe?

Great work! The 2nd-coat approach may work on lifeless surfaces, not trees.

Can one take insulin on the job? running out of steam is common with leukemia too. I have to take frequent breaks/slowdowns and avoid heavy lifting but some of that is from age too (63). Climbing is less exerting than most ground work, with the right tricks and toys. As with any constraint, have the right mates, listen to your body and pace yourself and you can get it done.

Agree to remove shaggy bits back to lateral and leave it. not really sure about 1/3 rule re branch to stem, but i like the sounds of it--the smaller the wound the better! And avoid exposing heartwood. In the pic there looks to be a previous pruning wound near one end of the break. ? And discolored wood at a bulge at the distal end of the break. 3 mechanical constraints, including the crook (sharp bend). The whole tree seems to sprawl so it seems reasonable to propose reducing the heaviest limbs above, lightly, to prevent this history repeating itself. 15% off the end can increase stability by 50%. This might also have the added benefit of increasing sunlight to that remaining lateral, sustaining the broken branch as well. + Removing the whole limb would also increase risk of failure of remaining limbs.

Saw some good work on this in oz and have tried to copy it. the below quote from the bottome of the attached article: This is a procedure to make artificial hollows in habitat stumps on vertical sections. Identify a tree that can be retained as a habitat stump rather than complete removal. Remove the canopy back to a level that is acceptable to reduce the target area or risk of limb failure. Retain any existing hollows if possible. (See Figure 1 and Figure 2). Identify suitable locations for new hollows. Remove a faceplate approximately 30mm to 50mm thick and lower it to the ground. See Figure 3 and Figure 4. The size of the face plate removed will determine the size of the artificial hollow. Figure 3: Cut faceplate Figure 4: Remove faceplate Choose the desired entrance hole and carefully drill through the faceplate. Pre drill two holes to attach the faceplate back on to the tree with screws. See Figure 5 and Figure 6 Figure 5: Mark out the size of desired cavity with boring cuts. Once you know the desired depth of the cavity, draw a line on the chainsaw bar with a marker pen, so that each boring cut is similar in depth. Carefully use a small chainsaw to carry out a series of horizontal boring cuts. (Rollomatic E Mini with picco micro chain is very good for boring cuts). See Figure 7 and Figure 8 Figure 7: Cavity boring cuts Figure 8: Horizontal boring cuts Use a small crow bar and hammer to break out sections and form the cavity. Once this has been done, carefully tidy up the rough interior with the chainsaw. See Figure 9 and Figure 10 Figure 9: Break out cavity sections Figure 10: Cavity interior Pruning and Habitat-- Balancing Objectives.docx

For paint yes the old wire brush and elbow grease. different paint on different bark might come off better with different detergents. The yogurt idea is related to the culture of moss lawns---chuck some moss into a blender with cultured dairy product as a medium (buttermilk was the standard choice; may be a matter of availability) and spread it on bare areas to cover. to further undo the damage on the trees, nothing lost in experimenting with various lichens. no matter how well it establishes, the paint would be further obscured in any case. All this is not to say that a chat about your dreams may not be beneficial though.

Quit e thumpy; hollowish. Probe found lateral roots up to ~1m from trunk but they had a little give to them. The probe did not go straight into the trunk from the sinuses as i thought it might, but it went in a ways. one nearby house is in range if it falls, but not by much. imo the tree itself is the biggest risk of loss. It's an ok candidate for retrenching so that's what we did. We took a bit more off the top than i specced below, but left more of the lowest limb. after pics to follow. treequip, you must be in a cold climate.

Positively it is--one kind flexes, the other does not! But again in the introduction here, Dr. T makes clear the issues with assuming any wood is 'normal'. http://treephys.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/113.full.pdf

101 views and no reply ; let's add that it is a white oak quercus alba (common here but not in uk?), at the bottom of a gently sloping back yard. white oaks shut their stomata midsummer, which makes them drought resistant. I've given it 5-10 minutes of assessment; scheduled to prune tomorrow. ground is soft on south side, where owner has compost bin. i'll be bringing a root probe.

I've never gotten past the variability in penetrometer readings due to moisture content, so I just go by feel with a steel probe sans gauge. I do measure exactly 170# laying on it, so there's some scientific consistency of a sort. But re internodal cuts, I blew that pic up to 350% and for the life of me it looks like all the cuts were to buds, growth points with laterals or where previous laterals have shed, aka nodal cuts. So which ones were internodal? Or is this my yank dialect confusing me again? Pretty looking tree regardless.

This one lost a neighbor to the right (west) in 1996. Owners want to know what's to be done with it. Ground is soft on downhill (south) side, where decay is evident in sinuses. crusty stuff in one of them looks like Kd. (2nd pic) Circling root visible on north side, where groundcover covers buttress root. (3rd pic, sorry about lack of light.) How to judge condition? What works to carry out? Owners value the tree, and have a budget to work with.

The main job is getting the roots to radiate, not circle. Drilling in to install an eyebolt may be less injurious than wrapping the stem. Guying systems include: attachments, straps or cables, and anchors. You might have the right materials in your shed; it's how you use them that matters. see section 10 in the standard.

The difference is, hair does not have nodes, and it does not decay. I agree with all who point out that without knowing the objective, we can't judge the work, if the cuts are to nodes. Early on, BS 3998 makes clear: This standard does not cover the specific processes for surveying and inspecting trees; it starts at the point where the requirement for some kind of action has been identified but the work has not yet been specified (see Figure 1). At 35.3 kb it's hard to tell what internodal cuts there were; that's the main identifier of 'topping'. The cuts look small enough to avoid harming the tree greatly; I might happily claim the work as my own, if the cuts were all to nodes. But it's a little out of my range of operations. re the reasons to cut to nodes, attached case was instructive to me. AA Car Canopy.pdf

Standard pruning includes reduction for wildlife objectives, nothing too heavy there. Quite tricky how you prompted the assumptions, leading viewers to see Bellatrix Lestrange up there! Sly dog.

Why'd it bend over? Roots pull up or just stem bending? Makes all the difference--got a camera? re attaching to the stem, oft times drilling in an eyebolt is less damaging than any kind of wrap.

I am assumming that the red panda was in its enclosure at the wildlife park (hence the photo of the sign) where staff are unaware of how quickly rot sets into birches. It would appear that its not just the staff at the park that don't know this! Ohhhh, the sign was at that site, okay then. Maybe rot was desired as habitat for red-listed rot-eaters. they'll have plenty to work with then. Also the flush of sprouts can make nice nesting habitat. There's more than one legitimate objective for tree work.

When touring Mark Twain's house I saw a rack next to his desk for 'pigeon-holing' up to 20 writing projects. Nice to keep them visible; my back burner gets cold, and it's not good when skillets fall off the stove, especially paying ones! The June DD will have 6 pics (3 with AG), by far the most of my 29 episodes. I'll pop it to you then, for a look at mitigation-centric vet tree mgt by an international team. I almost wrote "tickling in the Humphriesian tradition" but not sure that would be welcomed... Mr. gaz' typing was quite accurate. I'm glad to have picked up the book again; the in vivo/in vitro page 61 yielded some potent quotables.

Hideous is putting it mildly; but it depends on the objective of course. 1. Leave them alone. 2. Climb higher, use pole tools, make smaller cuts. (see avatar) Any bets on how long it will take for the rot to get to the base? Did the panda escape from the zoo?

For that age, maybe slice up some branches so each kid gets a 'cookie' and counts the rings in it. then they can mark the years in it, showing when they started school, etc. Also troweling up a little dirt and showing roots, bugs, mycorrhizae and such, to give them an idea of what makes trees tick. show how the compacted areas have less life, and the mulched or natural areas more. this might also be educational for some of the adults, too.

This puts it rather well: "In simplified terms AG is a biomechanical response by the tree to load stress on a branch, or to gravitational forces causing deflection of the branch, OR as a “repair” response, for example, to some internal damage to the cambial cells on the outer surface of the wood of the branch." I like the way they list these causes in order of frequency, the worst possibility listed last, not as the first assumption that defect-centric assessors sieze upon. But the climber in me cringes at this assumption: "All agree that inspection of trees for safety purposes is carried out from ground level..." as for any inspection of a significant tree my assumption is i'm going up, at least to scaffold attachments. One case in the US was a hickory with 'ears' that had been cabled (too low) decades prior, and failed onto a car. I lost track of it after deposition, but it seemed the owner was not going to be held liable due to technicalities, despite all the obvious conditions. Funny you should mention the Detective--the June episode has been 6 months in review, a more complex case that centers on reading AG, in which Codit and his chinese buddy Clai Ming Hai do an aerial assessment. re assigning purpose to non-sentient organisms, to be precise this is 'teleology'. I first got familiar with it when I had a thesis proposal shot down because of it, and crawled back up the tree with my tail between my legs. Now my eye's sharpened to it, and like you guys I'm surprised and bothered to see teleological wording used in academia. However I'm not so sure that 'generate' is necessarily so, though 'modify' does carry a stronger whiff of purposefulness.

AG stands for Attorney General here, which seems to fit Jules' encounters of that acronym in case law...was it used in a "you should've known there was trouble" kind of way in those cases? it also fits that RW was Shigo's term, as he was a forestry researcher, granted with some keen arboricultural insights. What I'd tend to call AG (which results in RW) pic here on the lapsed willow pollard, the rib with inner bark showing. Then the apparent decay in--or on?-- the sinus (shriveled buttress? rotting rib?) of the Aesculus--if the ribs on either side start growing rapidly, would that be called AG/RW? OK, here they are, but mind the left one as I've had to patch it twice. I noticed it was leaking badly when I started going round in circles.

How can you be sure unless you try? Re depth, I'm in the shallow end of the pool much of the time, but I try to keep swimming.

I've seen it in a crack in a pecan ~6m high. We could tell Francis, but I think he's focusing on violins and caskets last i heard (2011). There ain't much green in the green industry, relative to music and mortuary. My observational 'data' are close to Tony's 1000;1 ratio, though I've seen 2 tipovers. But still it merits respect.