Arob

Fair enough Pete, your thread was the first I'd heard of any of this, so I know chuff all about any of it, having posted I noticed Tony S has started a thread on it too http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=6075 He's got a couple of links on that, so I'll check those out, but not tonight

Is there nothing that can be painted on the bark so that it tastes bad to the deer? From looking at your pics they don't seem to like the birch bark.

Not sure I follow your thinking here Pete, it says "As with earlier revisions, Chainsaw units previously achieved will continue to be valid after the revised Chainsaw Certificate of Competence units are released" How are you reading from that that it will invalidate your tickets? It doesn't say anything about re-assessment, just training, to me this raises the question what counts as training? Given Khriss' example where he, like you, can demonstrate a huge amount of experience I wonder if anything beyond that will be required? I think this may be positive if it means that someone who's been on a course, maybe even a short course, got their tickets and little further experience, won't be able to pick up a saw a couple of years down the road without some refreshment. But that's the way I've read what's in your post, you also say that the group included employers and contractors - surely they want what's best for the industry?

Is the ketchup off your butty? Sorry it must be quite (ahem) saw! (hope it heals well)

In case you missed it here is link to tonight's Natural World http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hs8zp/b00hs8t5/Natural_World_20082009_A_Farm_for_the_Future/ includes some very interesting meetings and visits to forest gardeners and forest gardens. What strikes me about those people who have made progress is their ability to observe nature, makes me think of Shigo's imploration to "touch trees".

You have to market it as a mulch, it can be quite effective as it tends to be much darker than bark, even good quality bark, and so gives a strong depth as a background colour and so can set off foliage greens really well. Worms will gradually work it into the ground and there are few soils that won't be improved by this. Have no idea about costs and logistics of bagging but that would massively affect marketability, hence would look for local outlets, if you can provide a real quality product then you could try designers/ landscapers, otherwise notices around local allotments etc. Not sure if there's any regs to look out for.

I've bought J. Arthur Bower's 'Mulch and Mix' 70L normal compost type sack retailed at £4per bag or 4 bags for £14. I think it's a good product but wonder how strong the market is, especially given low cost and availability of council composts / soil amendments?

How marketable is your product and what are your overheads and transportation costs?

I think the cost is high because as Penfold said; "its made from the distillates at the top of the cracking tower" It's the same reason, as i understand it, that diesel has gone up in price over recent years; there is a certain proportion of each grade produced from standard crude, as diesel become increasingly popular so demand caught up with and then started to push supply. So it became less of a by-product. I find Aspen slightly sickly in smell, and don't use it all the time, but despite the cost I can find uses for it.

Fantastic location hplp. There are others on here who could offer much better advice than myself, but from my little knowledge and experience I don't see why you need to fell it, you could deadwood it, okay it's going to transform the shape of it and it might look a bit wierd for a while until you get used to it, but if you want to reduce the risk.... There's some new growth there too, so providing there isn't some serious underlying disease it doesn't seem unreasonable to allow it to progress as it is, just manage it to reduce hazard (seemingly from deadwood), keep an eye out for signs of fungi (particularly honey fungus) and you could maybe look into feeding it / applying seaweed extract, or you could try something like this http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=2847 Maybe someone more experienced will come along and advise further. Enjoy that view!

"one wouldn't even leave logs on site.. " Hi Ben, I know it doesn't help answer your main question, but we did a similar job last year, there was evidence of vandalism and fire damage to trees so what we left on site was left as long lengths of large diamater sections with big stubs left on, this was to retain some dead wood on site whilst minimising the risk of kids setting fires or chucking stuff down the steep bank of the valley (lengths were left perpendicular to slope). (Of course if it's easy to extract the one taking the logs might just want it for firewood!?)

Hi hplp, do you know if there is a potential causal factor in the trees decline - particularly any activity around the roots?

This is very interesting Tony. (It'd also be interesting to find how people arrive at their decisions.)

Took the pics but never id'd. Any suggestions?

Sorry, couldn't tell you the height, not great at eastimating heights anyway, and it was a while back, but it was fully mature. Not sure of any pruning regimes which may have been followed - can't have been much more than removing a few epicormics as it was open grown and had a very full crown. Can't remember how far up the stem the decay ran, but we took a good few rings off before milling, but in the first pic you can see discolouration and in the second a few of the rings and quarters taken off the bottom.

Here you go MD, not sure how he tested it, (I think he may have probed to investigate extent of cavity?) Anyway, as you asked I looked and found a few more pics (which I hadn't filed), you can see the tree hasn't been able to compartmentalise, not sure if the black line is from the tree attempting to wall out the decay, or if it's from the fungi itself, but you can see a 'wet' looking area of timber beyong this black line, this wood was not obviously soft, but appears to be the beginning of the decay process. Sadly you can't squish the pics, but if you look carefully you might be able to see the really soft bits. It would be interesting to know how rapidly this decay can spread within the tree.

We came across it on Lime, as Tom says it goes very squishy, and it smells a bit. We were doing a crown lift and removing epicormics on a large mature Lime, using a Silky the nose of it knocked one of the butress flares and it resonated a bit, the sound gave away the fact that there was a major problem. When the boss came down I pointed it out to him and he scraped about revealing a hollow at the base, between root flares, and found a couple of small fruiting bodies and a few brittle 'sheets' which looked like burnt paper and had hyphae on them. Apparently these sheets are a good indicator of ustulina. The tree was subsequently probed and then felled and the extent of the decay, in the base of an otherwise apparently healthy tree, was quite amazing, especially given the small size of the fruiting bodies.

Thanks guys, that's put that idea to bed!

Thanks Huck, looks like an expensive job! Have you ever used a tc chain? Was wondering how you sharpen them - do you need a special type of file?

As I said, I have looked at the price of them. I don't know what your friend is referring to but I mean a tc chain for a standard chainsaw for cutting contaminated wood, they're not as expensive as you suggest - its what stihl put on the rescue saws - i don't think they're designed to cut the kind of stuff it seems your friend is cutting.

Just wondering how you chaps deal with nails, we found some late on, on Friday night, put an old chain on but it was destroyed, probably needed an angle grinder looking at all the sparks. Talking about it again today has made me wonder whether tungsten carbide chains would do any better. I've never even seen one, let alone used one, and know very little about them, other than they cost twice as much as an ordinary chain. So how do you deal with nails and have you, or do you, use tc chains? Thanks.

Bang on, (though you'd have a distribution curve based upon the mileage you chose - the more miles you do the better option 2 looks), if you're just pootling about then the old motor's got to look good, and without modern engine management system much easier to maintain.

Sorry to hear about your injury atree, hope you make a full recovery.