Marcus B-T

First off my response will be brief as i am in bed with pnumonia. Is a decision covered by me? well no because they are down to the individual. Is the outcome of the model covered? yes but only if you are a registered licencee.

Its free by the way

Threats for a pc is now available on julian forbes laird website

Attached is a demo version of the latest upgade, which is free to those who already have copies of version 5. Only the data for Cambridge works, if you click on any of the other towns and cities it just says data not available. The password to open it is already loaded. Rural data on a by-region basis is also available for those who work outside towns and cities. Version 7 will have rural data in more resolution. DBH 97-2003 v6.1Demo.zip

For copies of papers e-mail [email protected] The TTMS process. The TTMS system is essentially a statistical tool and compares individuals to large populations, the larger the better. It is also a decision tree and works as follows. Initial site inspection The initial part of the process is a site inspection to zone the potential risk if a tree was to fail in a given area. The conditions for this are in my recent paper in the Arboricultural Journal but they are not dissimilar to the methods proposed as part of THREATS and some other systems. The zoning also determines the frequency of re-inspection. The site is also given a stress index based on the growth of the trees within the wider population, and where stress is a consideration the re-inspections may be more frequent depending on the overall risk. For example in a Low Risk Zone re-inspection is less influenced by the stress trees are under than in a higher risk zone. The stress index is unpublished at the moment but will be published this winter. Tree inspection The trees are then inspected. Outcomes are then compared to the wider population data, e.g. if a tree has a bleeding canker, this may be present on one or two trees of a given species and may therefore be significant. However, it may be that most of the trees have the cankers and if most of the trees are relatively healthy, and there are not large numbers of trees falling down then although the cankers may still be noteworthy and a consideration with re-inspection, they are probably not a significant factor in risk. Determining the need for further evaluation of attributes associated with potential risk. Some attributes will be significant aspects of risk and will warrant further inspection, some factors will be significant aspects of risk and will not require further inspection. The later can come about for two main reasons; firstly the attribute that contributes to the risk is so blatant it would be a waste of money to look at it further, i.e. it can be evaluated visually; secondly the overall risk is still too low to warrant further inspection, i.e. the risk is apparent but remedial work will not significantly alter the overall risk. The decision as to whether further information is required will also be affected by the presence of a TPO or conservation area and may not be purely down to risk alone. The visual survey will highlight trees that may require work, with the obvious trees the work requirement is almost certain and a further investigation will not change this, but with some trees the significance of the attribute identified as the cause may be less well established. At this point further investigation is required. The visual part of the risk evaluation can be seen as the attribute identification, this next part is the attribute evaluation. Attribute evaluation Not all trees require this next stage but if at tree is identified as having an attribute that may lead to failure at some point in the near future although it is not imminent then it is likely that it will become necessary to have the attribute evaluated. The reason the evaluation is necessary is that when attributes are evaluated only 1% of them will lead to a failure within the next three years, so in most cases work can be scheduled in according to budget requirements, also around 75% will actually pose very little risk. What is the evidence for this? The low number of tree failures we see every year. If every attribute we look at leads to a failure we would see in the region of 40% of our trees failing in some way. So evaluation and monitoring will reduce costs but also allow for the trees to adapt to the attribute. A good way of looking at this is that if the failure is not imminent but work is thought necessary then a further evaluation is probably warranted. The further evaluation will probably reduce or even remove the need for work in most cases, and in a rare number of cases it will highlight that more work is necessary. What kind of evaluations can take place? The first is the evaluation of the amount of disruption an attribute causes. This can be looked upon as the amount, extent and location of dysfunction. When you study a population as a whole there is critical pathway of dysfunction development to a point of failure. That is dysfunction can develop in a region of a tree and as it does the tree stability is not compromised. Because of this there are large numbers of incidences of dysfunction within the population. As the dysfunction becomes more pronounced then there are fewer incidences present because either the tree is repairing itself or the attribute is lost in a failure. This can be cross referenced with actual tree failures and the amount of functional wood that has been lost. This was the subject of the seminars I gave and the paper at the ISA conference, Again it will be published in the winter. TTMS uses thermal imaging for this part and the system calibrates images against Tmax and a Tmin as described in my other paper in the Arboricultural Journal. This assessment on its own is not enough to evaluate the attribute; it must be looked at in consideration of the overall structure of the tree and the tree’s location, since this is what ultimately causes the failure. TTMS uses the population for this as well. This part is handled initially by the height to dbh calculator. Exposure is one aspect, has the tree been recently ‘un-sheltered’ by the removal of other trees or buildings? Another is the trees adaptation to it’s environment; does the tree fall within the height and dbh of the population? If it does it is likely to be stable and not require work. The height to dbh calculator is critical because the most common work advocated is crown reduction. The height to dbh calculator can also be used to back calculate an estimate of the amount of exposure. The workings of this is described in another current thread and there is a down load available. I also have a calculator that tells me when there have been enough dry days to start to look for signs of sudden limb failure based on previous incidences. The remit I have from a number of sources is to remove subjectivity form the process wherever possible. This is a continuing process.

THe other thing is that I did actually post that there is a demo version of the sofware that you can arrange to have and you can orgaise a demo of the camera from the fanufacurers to go with it (try before you buy if you like). If that is not transparent, what is?

I have give three seminar series, one international paper, and some postings on this site about how the likelihood is calcualted. Everyone who gets a report from me has an explaination attached, and I recommend that every one who uses the sofware does the same. I can only give a summary at the moment (just too busy) but basically you look at incidences of the amount, location and severity of dysfunction in the population and look at the extremities of these occurances in realtion to the dimensions of the tree. This data is then cross referenced against tree failure information and the mechanistic models. So the data is cross calibarted in three ways (highly robust) however the first method (the population analysis) is the most robust but has do be carried out for each town and city (hence the hiegt to dbh calculator). However, there is a critical amount of dysfunction at 70% for undisturbed trees and this can be used as an initial bench mark.

The other part of Tony's question is harder to answer. If the symptom is well developed then the cause can be easily determined. If the symptom is not well developed then it cannot be distiguised from other casuses. These are not visual symptoms by the way they are thermal syptoms I am talking about. This is true of methods though. So what we constsntly try to do is two things, The first is to reduce the amount of noise that might obscure early symptoms that could identify the cause. The other is to constantly improve the description of each symptom sinsce this will allow us to better distnguish between symptoms and make earlier diagnoses. This is important becasue it allows treatment of the casues earlie and allow better management of the trees. The issue here is that we have a great deal of data on some symptoms (e.g. K dusta on Beech) others we have less data on. However becasue we are constant collecting data we know more and more each day.

To answer Tony's question. Because some of the work shown has been historically old, it appears that we found the symptoms and then matched the thermal images. This is true because we were in that phase of development, but that was 3-4 years ago. This data was used to build the software. We now have a system that collects surface temperature data in a rigorous way, and this is used to establish changes in the way the tree moves heat around. This relates directly to the quality of tissues that allow this process to happen (basically wood with water in it). The conformation that this system works is that time and again the diagnosis and prognosis matches what was ultimately found to be true. It is true and fair to say that in the early days (4 years ago)the diagnoses and prognoses were occasionally inacurate, but this is part of the steep learning curve. It's a double edged sword, you stick your head above the parapet to have agood look but you also risk having your head blown off. I would like to say however that no trees were needlessly felled as the reslut of a thermal maging survey from me, even in the early days because I was careful always to advocate an invasive inspect just in case. I know there are rummours out there that I had this tree or that tree condemned when it was unecessary. The answer is not by me. There were condemned trees we used as tests and there was two occasions were I said "no the tree just needs to be monitored" and they cut it down any way. So it may seem that we find the probelm and then say it's like this following thermal imaging, but this is very old news and not what happens these days.

The answer to both of the last two postings is sort of the same (the science bit not the cost bit will need to explain that later). It is a question of the time line in the production process of the software. The first phase of the investigation is in essence a decoding process. An understanding of three processes: How the environment affects the T max (you'll have to refer to my recent paper for this). How the surface temnperature is altered relative to Tmax by dysfunction and decay. But then thow the 3D jigsaw of the cahnge in temperature relates to certain symptoms, disorders, pests, types of decay etc, etc. This is a long process of matching changes in temperature to causes. This took about 4 years but is still an ongoing process as we learn more about new insect pests and all sorts of other things and will actually never stop. We now have a robust software to calibrate the images, and thes images can then be analysed to identify where the critcal changes in tree functional wood are located. These tell you what is going on in the trees. If there is gross dysfunction at thye base, you know you have a root/rootplate problem. If it is at a branch union then that is where the problem is. I am of course talking in a simplistic way. Two principles are used the cahnges in T against Tmax but also the T distribution, these tell you about the amount of dysfunction but also the type of dysfunction e.g. is it a canker or maybe decay or then again dry wood. This can be acheived because the speed of the technology allows you to collate large data bases. Realy we are so far down the line with development of the technology, that IP doesn't worry me too much, there are some things that need to be retained, but I am happy to talk about most issues these days. Be warned though that thermodynamics is a tricky subject I have been accused by one perosn of hinding the truth about how the system works. The fact of it is that although the mechanism of heat movement is quite simple and elegant, the physics behind it is complex. Having said that physics follws rules which cannot be broken so it is hard to lie with physics. If the tree is warm it iswarm if the tree is cold it is cold. The trick is to understand how warm it should be and why it should be at that temperature.

Getting back to the strictly scientific. There is one point that none of you have realised and that is that the system has the ultimate in auditable data. If someone takes a thermal image and makes a claim about it, even if they have not subscribed to TTMS, you can take their image and run it through TTMS to analyse it. There are some real caveats with this of course, one being that they don't lie about the time and date they took it, but there are ways of even estimating this from angle of shaddow etc. Also a good TI image is almost as good as a photo in terms of being able to tell which tree it is from. Now that is transparity! It means that it an LA is presented with an image as evedence for a planning application or TPO apeal. The LA can analyse the image independently using the software for themselves.

sorry about the mix of text in my last response don't know what happened if it is not clear which s my text I will re-do it

IPad or Net Book? Discuss:biggrin:

Hopefully the attached doc will help but yes julian said it needed to be more intuitive and so your wish is my command there things are only useful if they can be used

Julain Forbes Laird has been reviewing the calculator and has made some suggestions for changes which will go into version 6 along with data for rural trees, he has also been through the background to it and attached is some info on how it can be used and how it was created. Height DBH Calculator.doc

On a more serious note, the majority of tree failures involve the root plate or large branches. Failures around the basal area are less common, probably because the tree is more able to adapt to changes in this region.

I just had a look at "video wars" on wikipedia and actually TI is th VHS not the betamax. The reason VHS became popular was that there was a wider a cheaper variety of machines available to record and play the data (just so with thermal imaging), because of this the consumer was not tied into one manufacturer or supplier (also true of thermal imaging). I think Tony needs to change his image. Actually I think TI is a DVDr player? It has flexibility and produces a high quality output.

K. deusta can be purely saprophytic (therfore no problem to the tree just living on wood already dead, so quantify amount of living/dead wood) but can be oportunistic/pathogenic particularly if there is ganoderma/honey fungus present. So even if close to a house do a proper assessment, no knee jerk reactions please.

I'd heard from someone that Glyn was investigating TI about 2 months ago but put it down to curiousity. In terms of can it identify decay, read the paper in the arb journal, there are some complex things to be overcome that's why I had to develop a piece of software. The real discovery for me however was that decay detection and how you go about it is one thing but ultimately you have to put it into the context of how does that relate to the structure of the tree, this to my mind was the real benefit of TI, you could build large data bases and look at things in a comparative way. Not only can you determin decay but also whether it is significant or not. In many cases it isn't. We all sort of know this but here is a tool that can quantify this realtionship and give hard evedence. Iain eluded to a recent study of 63 lime veteran lime trees all with cavities at various points, but which are significant and require that the tree has further attention? Looking at the situation in a comparatiev way you find the extremities and can deal with these, this is just a small proportion of the population. The management is justified and the trees as a whole benefit, there are still lots of nesting site left, and the integrity of the landscape is retained (sustainability?).

I think I first met Glyn when I was doing my PhD goodnes knows how many years ago that was. He always comes across as a bit of a sales guy (even more than I do) but he is a good bloke under it all. The fact that he ahs opened his eyes to Ti is no big suprise he has shown interest for some time now and he is a clever guy as well. I did some consultancy for Bartletts with the the TI camera. What can I say it must have been good. If you think that TI is all functional wood and vitality, think again. the pest ident side of things will probably be even bigger. I am doing some work for Forest Research on Oak Decline at the moment so watch this space on that, and there are other aspects as well such as quanitifcation of damage from bleeding canker. Ultimately it comes down to the multifunction of TI, the speed and the price (you can now get a decent camera for £2500), but as the price comes down watch out for the cowboys. I don't have any worries about others comming on board with TI, at some point soon they will fnd out that the comparative aspects will only tell you so much and that ultimately you need the software that I developed and that others have invested in. The fact that Glyn has come on board just demonstrates the potentailof the technology.

I have some images of trees with the OPM somewhere I will dig them out. Marcus

My two papers in the arb journal have now seen the light of day. If you don't subscribe to this I have reprints available I can e-mail to you. If you e-mail: [email protected] I will reply with them attached. regards M B-T

Try taliking to Pete Baraclough at Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden if he hasn't retired yet.

I'm sure in the Alpine air of the home counties that heavy metals are not a problem but there have been a number of cases in london where repeat applications of compost have led to high levels of heavy metals. This due to interception of heavy metals from the air by leaves. You do need repeat applications over a number of years to get to this stage though. Problem is that once the heavy metals are in the soil they tend to stay there and accumulate over time. Re the nitrogen levels there are two issues here. First is what is good for the trees. If you have green material in your chip heap, then after 6 weeks you will still have at least 2Kg per dry tonne of free nitrogen, you could have a great deal more. On a 100 mm application with is equivalent to around a 400 kg per ha N fertiliser application. This is more that you would apply to wheat fields or arrable grass land (in some cases that would be 2 years worth of N application), even young trees wouldn't need this much. This level of free nitrogen will favour N-bacteria in the soil at the expense of fungi and other bacteria, so you upset the soil microflora balance. About half this rate is closer to the mark, better still find out what the free N content is there are cheap self analysis kits out there. Then you can adjust the application rate, 50-80 Kg per ha is a good target. The other point is this. If it becomes widespread practice to apply organic matter to trees as a mulch, then all sorts of other waste streams will come out of the woodwork as mulches. This is basically because it is cheaper to spread than to landfill. So if we don't appreciate the limits and why they are in place then we will be open to exploitation by the cowboys. This has already happened in agriculture, horticulture and landscaping on a number of occasions. The regulations are there to protect the environment from over application of N in particular. We are after all trying to help the trees, not make this good in the short term and then worse? I have published some papers in the arb journal on the use of mulches, also on the WRAP web site and in other publications and there are some other things kicking around the net.