ScottF

Looks good, I'll give it a try. Uncommonly generous of you to offer it for free. Cheers

We went through it with a firm called Interface this year ISO 9001 and ISO 14001: Quality and Environmental Management Certification . It's run by a chartered forester mate of mine ansd they undertstand the industry well. It took a few months to get everything in place, but they were very good at holding my hand through the process and they've haelped me develop some very useful systems and processes. As much as anything it makes you consider how you do things and how you might be able to do them better. It's an ongoing process. In terms of how much it costs it would depend entirely on the scale and complexity of your business. What I would say is that many local authorities or business development agencies offer financial assistance for this sort of thing and it might be worth looking into. As for whether it will help, that will depend entirely on the sort of work you're doing and who you're doing it for. If your work is largely domestic or small-scale commercial it might not be worth it, but if you want to get into larger-scale projects, anything to do with infrastructure or large-scale land management, it's very much becoming a prerequisite. It certainly smooths out stages of some of the more onerous PQQs. Try Paul Chadderton at Interface and tell them I suggested you contact them. Scott

Excellent idea well executed. Best of luck with it.

Thanks for the emails and PMs, guys. I'll be getting back in contact once we've a better idea of start dates for the projects in question, towards the end of this month.

John, what you're describing is a typical resistograph reading, with peaks and troughs and gradients of higher and lower density. Depending on the settings you can even detect the growth things and other pretty discrete features. I'm not sure about the "very hard deadwood"; it's very hard to tell that any increased or decreased density it down to. It could be reaction wood, included bark, decay etc etc and decaying wood inside the stem wouldn't be likely to harden in the way that dessicated dead wood on the outside of the tree would. The example that Martwizz has shown gives some idea how to interpret the readings, although it sounds like it's a more simple case than the one you're describing. In terms of the intentions, possibly dubious or otherwise, it's often hard to be sure. Are there possible benefits to getting the tree down? Is the resisto reading the only evidence in support of felling? How's the crown/rest of the tree looking?

If you can scan them and post them I'm sure a few of us could give you some thoughts. Has the consultant given you a diagram or photos to indicate where each reading was taken?

Just bumping this. Thanks to those who got in touch, but we've had another project come up which may require some climbers to undertake aerial inspections of trees (mainly looking for bats) needing to be removed as part of an infrastructure project. The work will be based in North Wales. Any interested climbers, ideally North Wales based and perhaps with an interest in doing some surveying too, PM me or email through the website. Cheers

Confirm is a piece of software specifically designed to make you want to drop kick your tablet PC into a hedge.

I agree, Paul, that the standard has no power to compell, but having watched the influence that the 2005 standard has had in upping developers' and designers' games in terms of tree protection (from an admittedly low starting point), I think that defining terms and trying to get the concept of site monitoring and reporting into the public arena with a bit more emphasis would have been really useful. I'm getting slightly tired of jumping through various hoops to agree tree protection, method statements, special surfaces etc etc at planning stage, and to agree a really robust set of controls on a site to protect trees and secure replacements, only to drive past the same sites "in build" and see no fencing, new trenches going in through RPAs, gardens extended and graded through roots etc etc. It just makes the whole process utterly pointless. All of this is at least in part due to LA's not appreciating the need for competent and well-resourced TOs, with a number of large authorities in Wales dispensing with having a TO altogether. While this may present an opportunity for private arbs to cover this service, I'd personally prefer to have a good TO in post who I can deal with. Without this, there is no real compulsion for a cynical or even careless developer to do the right thing with respect to trees. I may have strayed off-topic a bit here, but that's just how I roll.

Pretty underwhelmed with the changes so far. They seem to have taken the rubbish categorisation system and rather than overhauling it to allow for rather more nuanced and comprehensible scoring, they've changed the "R" category to "U". They've also failed to address the massive elephant in the room, which is that without vigilant site monitoring and reporting as a KEY part of the entire process, any preliminary planning work which is done is completely pointless. All that's pointed out is that monitoring is useful, but enforcement remains the domain of the LA. Poor.

Download's working now. Got my shiny new copy.

As usual, I'm with Tony on this, sometimes quick adaption is what's needed. Wait and see...

water. lots of water...

Looking at the first picture I'd saw that linear "bulge" along the length of the top of the branch is probably indicative of adaptive growth to some sort of delamination inside the it, and the superficial (as you've observed elsewhere by the sounds of it) bark cracking is a function of that locally increased (in volume/increment terms) growth. If by "scanning" you mean PiCUS or Resistograph I'm not sure it would tell you a great deal. The resistograph might give you some feel of the severity of the crack, as might the PiCUS, but I'm not sure it would be worth the effort and expense. If the limb's heavily end-loaded, and you have good points to reduce to, that might represent a better use of resources. When in doubt, monitor.

Well, ahem, if you wanted to test the tree I know a man who can, but given the evidence I'd say you'd be best getting it down. if for whatever reason the LA is resistant, then ask them for guidance on alternatives. The usual alternatives might be reduction/retrenchment, soil amelioration or monitoring. Give the tree's form, condition and the targets, I can't see that any of these alternatives could really apply.

Winters in Calgary/banff area are pretty parky (-20 to-30 not uncommon), so work might be not as constant in the winter (emergency stuff nonwithstanding). Stunning there in Spring and Summer, mind, and much cheaper than BC

I understand Digiterra are looking at an android version, but no word yet on availability or price. I would hope that an Android marketplace release would be cheaper than ther current locked SD card format. What Digiterra should do, in my view, is have relatively cheap licening costs for the data collection version (Android), and then a more expensive licence cost for the desktop version (Window 7, or better OSX) which would be used by the porject manager, rather than the other way round (as it is now).

£750 per seat and no discount, regardless of how many you buy. This is my main annoyance with Digiterra,and may become serious enough in due course to make me have to switch. I would hope that the price will be looked at as and when they ditch Windows mobile (a rubbish OS and my second annoyance with Digiterra).

In terms of accuracy just consider whether you need to pay the £2k+ more for sub-metre accuracy when the thing you're measuring is,well, as big as a tree. I've tried handsets from £3.5k to £500 and the most expensive one couldn't cope with tree crowns and was essentially unusable. They're all pretty crap,to be honest. The sooner the handset manufacturers start ditching Windows mobile and get onto Android the better (this is starting to happen now).

Has the client picked species yet? Quite a few species are used as phytoremediants (using their natural characteristics to improve soils). I used to plant red alder on mine tip sites in Canada which enhanced soil fertility and apparently soaked up heavy metals. First principles on a site like this is to use pioneers species initially and see what happens, but the key thing to establishing any trees is either to provide water and/or work to the available water status of the site.

This might have been covered elsewhere in this thread, but what about Forest Enterprise? They've been crossing this public/funded vs commercial line for years

I used to live in Georgetown, not far from you Cary. It is some years since I've heard the expression "have at 'er". Nice.

I've seen this spec dozens of times from dozen of landscape architects all over the country. It's a generic cut and paste spec (I think originally from the DMRB series 300 specification) which describes tree planting in general terms for a generality of conditions. Most landscape architects and other specifiers expect you to use your judgement to get the trees in and have them survive. Indeed, they depend on your judgement becuase they don't really have the practical knowledge themselves- this isn't a criticism; in the same way, an architect is going to expect the builders to be able to build a block wall, but don't ask an architect to build you one themselves. I'm obviously generalising a bit here, but you're the contractor, and if there's a liability period involved (and there should be), then it's in your interest to have the trees thrive. If you know the site conditions, soil types etc etc, then you should know what to do. By all means stick to the spec if you think it's sensible, but query where you don't. For exmaple, if the soil on site is rich and friable, then why add compost and fertliser which may well increase adjacent weed growth? One of the easiest ways to get a planting contract right is good plant handling- store them correctly, don't let them dry out or freeze, treat them with care and plant them with equal care. If you think that there's any chance of first year drought, make sure there's a clause that will get you paid if you need to come back and water them (never depend on someone else to do your watering). Good luck

Looks a bit like your neck of the woods, eh?

I'd agree broadly with Tony's points above in that, apart from the empirical data that you're collecting (DBH,Height,specie etc) the evaluation process is entirely subjective, and so it should be. You're being asked for your opinion, nothing more. What is important is that you can defend your contentions with sound reasoning. After having been through my fair share of appeals (as tree officer and as consultant), I always approach my decision-making with the thought of what a potentially aggressive solicitor or pendantic planning inspector might ask, and how I would justify my reasoning. And in terms of bowing to developer pressure and downgrading a tree to enable a development- bad idea. I reckon all of those out there who will (and there still are some about), eventually get found out and their word ends up meaning very little indeed. As an aside: instruct Pronunciation: /ɪnˈstrʌkt/ verb 1 [reporting verb] tell or order someone to do something, especially in a formal or official way: From the Oxford English Dictionary