Giles Hill

Yes. It sounds like a mild case of brain damage. On the plus side, it hasn't killed you yet and it sounds like it's getting better rather than worse, so you'll probably be fine. All the same I think you'd be wise to see a doctor. Arbtalk is great place to come for advice on tree surgery but possibly less so for brain surgery.

If you're using native hedging, the best bet is to base your species mix on what's in the local field hedgerows and stick to that. i.e. your hedge mix will be based on what is best suited to the area, rather than a random mix of 'native' plants. Also base the mix with a strong emphasis on one or two plants and use these for 70 or 80% of the mix, then make the remaining 20 or 30% out of a number of 'other' species. Looking at the hedges around here, it might be 80% hawthorn to provide the 'framework' of the hedge and 20% of 'other' - eg 5% each of hazel, dogwood, plum and blackthorn. Or... 50% hawthorn, 30% field maple to provide the framework and the other 20% made up of secondary shrubs. The absolute key thing is to keep the weeds down, particularly in the first year. I prefer not to use spiral guards, because they allow weeds to grow at the base of the hedging plants and the hedge can take a while to get away.

I'm guessing the Oak and Poplar would be heavy standard (ish) size. For estimating purposes I'd normally allow around £40 per tree for labour and materials, that would include mulch and double staking, but not the tree, it also wouldn't include carrying them up a big hill. It's only worth installing watering systems if someone is going to water them.

Here's an old G. Res:

An old Ganoderma resinaceum. (possibly)

Thanks Bundle for mentioning 'SIR', it sounds like the kind of thing I was wondering about, I'll take a look.

Hi Sean, Have you tried reducing the file size?

Do you think it could be that the vigourous growth resulting from the reduction, might be offseting the usual symptoms of dysfunction? If that is the case, I'm not sure if it's good, bad or not relevant in terms of how the tree deals with the fungal decay...

Nice pics David, Talking of crown disfunction, it looks like it's been reduced? It also looks quite dense for an ash - is it a lot of epicormic growth? Does it have a slight lean away from the path or is it just the way the camera has been held?

I think the the first three may be the remains of a larger 'proper' bracket fungus. Something has also killed off the epicormic growth above the fungus - perhaps a combination of intense sunlight and dry conditions have scorched both of them?

Hi Steve, to be honest I haven't looked at the notes since the exam. I'm waiting to get the results back before I look again - I'll then either revise for the field exercise, or a re-sit! That said, I find most things arb interesting, particulalry if they have some relevance to my day job - parts of the course certainly don't! I'm learning little bits regularly. Talking of pest and diseases, I originally found this forum doing a search for such things. (Don't know if that's good or bad.)

Looking at David's pics of the Rigidoporus and the ones on this thread: http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/tree-health-care/8214-rigidoporus-perenniporia.html You can see the brown pores from previous years appearing as stripes in the cross-section. I'm wondering if your last one is the Perenniporia.

I was wondering about the decay strategy of Meripilus and googled this - you may have come across it already: http://www.flac.uk.com/downloads/Meripilusmonograph.pdf Some random thoughts / questions. If the roots are grafted I guess the adjacent tree is also likely to be hosting the Meripilus? Would the new growth not be able to support itself fairly quickly, rather than relying on the adjacent tree? Particulalry if Meripilus does lead to 'adventitious root development'. Regarding the regen and the fact it's growing from a Meripilus infected root stock, I suppose it can cope with the situation until it reaches a certain age? Or does Meripilus kill young trees? I know you're not speculating about the cause of the regen, but I wondered if it had anything to do with the erosion mentioned, exposing surface roots. I'm not hoping for definitive answers, but I'd be interested in any comments!

I was just wondering if it's to do with dormant buds in the surface roots becoming exposed to increased sunlight, as the tree has died back. I was thinking along the lines that the Meripilus kills the tree by interupting vascular flow (I don't know if that is correct?) and the roots normally die as a result of insuficent photosynthetic products rather than being 'posioned' by the fungus.

I think glyphosate is used in forestry mostly for foliar treatment of weeds, rather than for stump killing. Conifer stumps don't regrow - i.e. not the species normally used in forestry. Are you sure it's used on decidous stumps when thinning deciduous woodland?

What are the symptoms? It might be that the removal of the other two trees has opened the remaining one to increased sunlight - the rootzone as well as the tree itself. As an aside, is it necessary to poision beech stumps when they get to that age? I would have thought they'd more than likely just die?

I think it'd also come under the failed hazzard beam category.

Same here. It was good to meet Sean and Steve - were any other arbtalkers at Myerscough?

Well spotted, I should be working too.

I do like the discular bracing system. However, considering the basal decay and target, I think it should be felled.

Steve, I'm answering this as a student trying to make head or tail of it, rather than a practitioner... Here's my understanding: PUWER, COSHH ETC all fall within the Health and Safety framework, but they are more specific and include things which must be done, that are not mentioned in the general Health & Safety Regs. For example, COSHH refers to 8 steps that must be taken. LOLER refers to checks you must do, markings you must put on the equipment etc. You don't need to have separate risk asessments, you just need to make sure that your risk assesment is sufficient, which may include checking what you are currently doing against the relevant regulations and making sure you're doing enough. i.e. apply the five steps of risk assessment: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg163.pdf

I love the group picture David - it's always nice to see voyeur snails. I just had to check on Google to see if you'd spotted a gap in the market. Apparently not.

Thanks for explaining that Lee. So... If I've got it right, the airspade will break the soil down more completely, but it's only practical for depths up to 12''. Whereas the deep root aerator works deeper, but creates fissures, rather than breaking the entire soil profile... I think I understand the benefits of vertical mulching compared to the above methods, but see they all might have their place. Do you use some kind of drill or auger to make the holes and if so, how deep do they go? I could imagine that vertical mulching might also be a better option if you were intending to use a cellular confinement system on ground that was already compacted, because it would maintain open channels whilst the surrounding compacted soil would support the weight of the paving. The reason I was pondering this was I've often wondered how effective a load-bearing cellular system is, when it's laid over air-spaded ground - i.e. I was thinking freshly airspaded ground, would potentially have no soil structure and therefore would suffer a certain amount of re-compaction problems from the filled cellular system itself, compared to undisturbed ground. Does that make sense?

I think that might be an evil harlequin ladybird raping an innocent English lady ladybird. Or is it? UK Ladybird Survey - UK species