ScottF

I use Mark Richard insurance in Bristol. £500,000 prof indemnity and £2,000,000 public liability for arboricultural consultancy and landscape design. Around £600 per annum. As for how well they pay up and let you know when I screw up.

Here's my little arb. He uses the dribble as an antiseptic pruning wound paint. Clever little mite.

If you'd be so kind as to move it down to North Wales for me I'd be delighted. Just kidding, I'll ask around.

Had this done a few years ago with no ill effects and some disappointingly small scars. General anaesthetic can only be described as "excellent". Could do with some every night around bed time.

Alder apparently makes the hottest burning charcoal you can get. They used to make gunpowder out of it back in the day when we were allowed to bear arms (or was it arm bears?). There's a number of old alder coppices near me with gnarly old stools over 2 metres through. Looks fantastic. I'd suggest choosing your species based on your site conditions- if it's wet, use alder, if it's a bit drier, use hazel, rich soils, try sweet chestnut. There's no reason not to mix species if your site enjoys variable conditions. It's also good to intersperse some standards in there for structure. Try to make sure you use local provenance tree stock (check your zone on the FC climate zone map on their website) as the herbaceous plants which start to associate from the coppice system- enjoying periods of dormancy under shade, then pooping out after cutting- will trigger at the same time as their native, locally-adapted counterparts. If you use plants from elsewhere, they might come into leaf too early or late, and fail to offer the light and heat trigger some of these species require. It sounds like a smashing little project to me- enjoy!

Was that the time you stood it up on it's end, the battery fell out, flew through the windscreen and hit you on the head (much to my initial horror, then considerable amusement)? That time?

I'm so gripped I may need to pop a waterproof cover onto my office chair.

Could the answer just be better silviculture? Perhaps if people didn't specify a heavy sward of ryegrass mix to be sown under where trees are to be planted (as per the roadside example) we wouldn't need to spray. I worked with some french contractors some years ago and they densely sowed mustard under new planting next to a road. It fixed nitrogen in the crappy soil and didn't seem to check the trees. I hate to sound like a luddite (for I know that nostalgia isn't what it used to be), but people seemed to manage forests rather well before Monsanto got out of Agent Orange and into Roundup. Hand or machine screefing, nurse planting, mineral mulching etc etc- there are alternatives. Let's use our heads and challenge received specifications.

Cheers for the interest, guys. It may well be worth putting together a list of potential surveyors for outside of the midlands as well, on reflection. The work's for Capita Symonds, which is an engineering and environmental consultancy with offices nationwide. If anyone's interested, Please feel free to send a CV, availability and day rate expectations to [email protected] . Thanks

Ed used to have a picture of one of these chippers in his wallet which he would occasionally pull out a stare at wistfully. Poor thing.

Try Anderson Tree Care on 01246 570044. I started with them 12 years ago and they're a family business and a great bunch of guys. If they're not hiring, they'll be able to offer you some advice, I would have thought. Tell them Canadian Scott recommended them. Best of luck

Just under the wire. A good cause indeed!

She appears to have lost one her contact lenses.

Good heavens, those are possibly the finest gropples I've seen on a buck of his years. Smashing stuff!

Come on you squid lovers, let's get some pictures of our favorite marine chums up here. Pictured is my old squid, Morris, who died tragically on Christmas eve when his bowl was upended in the back of my Landrover when I ran into a lamp-post.

Cheers for getting in touch, guys. I'll be getting back to all who responded next week. All the best for 2009

Jolly well put.

Here's a snap of Gunter, my trusty arb weasel chilling out. Come on weasel lovers, let's see your weasels. Or stoats.

The film, "The world according to Monsanto" is available to view here: http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=105 or here: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/the-world-according-to-monsanto-a-documentary-that-americans-wont-ever-see-full-video/ . The film discusses the work of a number of independent researchers and environmental NGOs who have independently investigated the effects of Roundup and Monsanto's GM seeds. The film is no longer available on Google video due to legal threats from Monsanto. It's not a short film, but is well worth a look. I appreciate the sentiment that we should look to peer-reviewed research published in respected journals for guidance on these products, and perhaps I'm just an old cynic, but we have to remember that all research needs funding. I wouldn't imagine that funding for research into the long-term effects of the patented products of hugely powerful biotech companies would be very easy to come by. Besides, where was the funded research into the effects of DDT, Paraquat, dioxins etc etc? Rather too late, it could be argued. If anyone wants to post further about biotechnology, agri-chemicals or GM organisms, perhaps we could fire up a new thread somewhere?

Will anyone here vouch for Ed?

I'm the project manager for a number of reasonable-size surveying contracts to come on stream in the new year. I'm looking to develop a pool of suitably experienced and qualified surveyors to work on a subcontract or "zero-hours" contract basis. I'm going to need some people initially in the midlands, but the work's likely to expand in due course. The contracts involve capturing tree data as part of a risk management strategy for 3 LAs (separate contracts) and will involve the use of handheld computers (PDAs) or tablet PCs and the use either of QTRA or Metheny and Clarke, depending on the contract. The work could develop into essentially continuous work for the 12 months at least. The ideal candidate would have the following: tech cert arb or higher qualification experience of hazard tree appraisal good p and d ideally, registered QTRA user If you're interested, please drop me a PM with your contact details. Happy new year. Scott

I think Tony's point, above, is fundamental: without a control (ie a population of ivy that is unaffected by the projected effects of global warming) what do you expect to be able to determine?

There's a very interesting film been produced by some of my Canadian compatriates called "The World According to Monsanto" (Monsanto being the manufacturer of glyphosate). It used to be on Google movies (where I saw it), but it might not be there any more. A review of it is here: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/world_according_to_monsanto_review.php The way that Monsanto is trying to very heavily push it's chemicals and GM seeds on farmers in less-developed nations is particularly telling. It's interesting to read what people think they know about this product because what's known about it seems to change all the time- for example, it was originally claimed to be organic, then the claim was retracted, then it was claimed not to persist in the soil, then the claim was retracted etc etc. It leads to what one of the posters said about "what we find out about these products in years to come" in terms of health and environmental impacts. When you're deciding to use a chemical, I suppose the acid test is whether you'd use it on the edible parts of your garden. There are (increasingly inventive) alternatives to dealing with weed competition in new planting. Coir or jute mulch mats work when combined with strimming, and there's some interesting work being done on using natural plant herbicides (allelopaths). Just because the spec says "hose down several times with a chemical whose long-term effects aren't necessarily understood", maybe you can come up with a mutually-acceptable alternative. I've been planting trees in their many hundreds of thousands in all sorts of weird and wonderful places for the past twenty years, and I think I can put up with a little extra manual work to avoid using these horrible things.

the previous joke is a three-star wrong 'un