Alinicoll

It looks like a slightly over ripe Meripilus.

Not really a clear enough photo but it's likely to be Fistulina.

They say it's 3:1. Not sure how that works but what do I know?!

If you clip a hand ascender with a krab on it onto your rope before you go out, then feed the end of your rope through the krab you can make a 2:1 system so you can pull yourself in. If that makes sense?

The fungi is Meripilus.

It's G. resinaceum.

That would look to me to be resinaceum.

Yep, you are probably correct.

Looks like Chalara.

Is it not Ganoderma with the brown flesh?

It is an effective way of creating standing dead on mass.

The idea of using a blow torch is interesting. I will certainly investigate that technique. Re: Coronets; We use them sometimes to make larger stubs look a bit more natural. It's debatable if the coronet cut itself provides much in the way of habitat as was their original intention but they do have their place. I find it quite hard to make very large coronets look anything approaching natural The stubs themselves we use either to encourage epicormic in some cases or aerial deadwood habitat in others.

Thanks for sharing this with us. It's good to see some ongoing documentation of your project, I look forward to seeing more in the future. Loving the ring-bark pollard idea. Is that something you came up with? I might use that idea myself. It would be interesting to see how second and third cuts go using that technique. Is that something you're planning to do?

Thanks. It didn't feel too sketchy once I was up there. The silky cutting was more to avoid dropping stuff into the garden underneath. The worst bit was the chogging, it kept cracking and popping which is a bit un-nerving ratchets or no ratchets. I guess if we went down far enough it would have popped in two which might have made for a funny video

We couldn't find the gaffa tape. Anyway, there's no such thing as too many ratchets! Seriously. The pictures don't really get across how decayed the very base was on the tension side. We didn't want it to barbers chair. Part of using loads of straps is if they start to pop there's some time to make a not too swift exit. Ideally I would have liked to support the top of the stem from two points but the anchors weren't there.

Any plans to grind the stump? That would be interesting.

The crown is a bit thin but not obviously so. Root wise, yes, there was evidence of decayed structural roots including the sinker roots which are a significant part of the support system.

Finally as promised here are some Resi readings from the tree we air-spaded. The first reading was taken down into the buttress on the westerly side of the tree where the investigation took place. The reading indicates sound wood up to about 14cm degrading rapidly between about 15 - 20cm and then into very degraded wood. A reading taken horizontally into the stem at 50cm indicated only sound wood. The reading taken down into the opposite (easterly) buttress was good to 33cm and then dropped right off into what I can only assume is open cavity or soil. The Northerly and southerly buttresses showed reasonably normal readings The last reading may indicate some degradation after 22cm but nothing nearly as significant as to the east and west. In conclusion the decay does not appear to be in the stem, an eccentric decay cone is probably present in the buttresses although it's not out of the question there are two separate colonizations to the east and west. The roots on the easterly side were fairly significantly decayed. The roots to the east also had a lot of Meripilus fruiting bodies so may be similarly degraded. The roots to the north and south will remain a mystery unless we decide to poke about further at some point.

The most basic form of mitigation I can think of in the and most likely to happen in this case is slinging a load of mulch about and seeing what happens. There's plenty of dead Beech in the area to chip I've not been to Burghley, it would probably be worth a trip.

Hi Paul, We actually found very little direct evidence of decay between the buttresses and also failed to find any of the classic Meripilus decay on the under side of the structural roots. It is possible that if we had gone around the whole of the base then more evidence would have been forthcoming. You may have noticed I spent a bit of time trying to clean out between two of the buttresses on the right side of the time lapse shot where a fruiting body was growing, there was a small cavity there leading under the stem but there wasn't any extensive decay visible and the sounding mallet evidence was inconclusive which was a bit of a surprise. I have some Resi readings taken into a few of the buttresses which do show significant cavitation behind the buttresses. I'll try to upload those in the next few days. Regarding decompaction; the tree is part of a copse which extends a couple of hundred meters along a ridge, it is well used by walkers and so the compaction covers a long wide area. Many of the Beech in this area are declining heavily, most have some degree of fungal colonisation and several have died in the last couple of years (perhaps drought also taking it's toll?). In a perfect world I would really like to restrict access to the area to give the ground a rest but this may prove controversial and would probably just shift the problem somewhere else. Decompaction with the airspade and mulching is certainly an option and something that we could look at for a few trees in the area. I don't know how effective it would be without trying to somehow limit the footfall on the soil. Certainly we are considering how to tackle the problem or if, in this case it is worth the use of resources. Given the condition of the tree, poor root condition with a slightly thin canopy, it would certainly be interesting to see if improving its rooting environment might help it re-establish better supporting roots or if it is simply too far gone.

With the splendid and prominent fruiting of Meripilus this year there has been a great deal of discussion around the wisdom or otherwise of retaining trees, especially Beech with fruiting bodies. Anyone working with trees for long enough has seen those typically spectacular Meripilus failures, yet we hear of trees retained for long periods, apparently in good health with this fungus present. David Lonsdale has, in the past, suggested that fruiting from the buttresses may be less significant than fruiting from the root plate. With this in mind we decided to perform an air spade investigation on a Beech with a fair old fruiting from both buttresses and some parts of the root plate. The tree is in an area with quite bad compaction on clay soil (proven using a penetrometer), the canopy is thinning but not badly. The purpose of the video is to share the experience of airspading the roots of a Beech with apparently extensive Meripilus for those who (like me) may not have seen this before. Hopefully it is useful.

Yes. I've not used SJ3 but the wooden brake is used to control the descent. So to descend you release the cam with the metal lever and control with the wooden brake. It just takes practice to get used to.

Are you using the wooden brake?

If it runs from a pole to the house it's still part of the network.

For non UA arbs doing tree surgery the 9m is given as the distance at which you should contact the network operator (15m or two tree lengths for felling), it is known as working in proximity. This distance is often over the top and is there allow a discussion to see if a shut down or line drop is necessary or not. sometimes it is not but it is better to get the proper advice. For non UA arbs vicinity and live zone should not come into it. We should not be working that close. If in doubt contact the power company. For the OP the line is too close. Contact the power company and get their opinion. This is a useful thread:http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/utility-arboriculture/39602-how-close-too-close-when-contact-local-network-operator.html