janey

I've been following the demise of a large, privately owned horse chestnut local to me over the past few years. It's had an ever increasing amound of necrotic bark, dieback and broken out limbs and G. resinaceum at it's base. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of this sad tree, but it should have been felled years ago. Finally, the owners saw sense and had it removed today . I managed to get a couple of pics of the associated decay in the stump as I was passing:

Do you mean what picures, ident' features and text that would be viewable, or what search options / key we could use?

That's mental!!! Especially the bit where the snowmobile comes bounding out of the haze and catches up with him.

I'm glad you had your minions placed in the second shot for perspective . It didn't look that big in the first shot. Is there any indication on what's degraded the roots?

Thank god for name tags That's one I've only ever seen in books and I'd be stumped if I had to ID it . Where's your interesting intergeneric find residing?

That's good practise for your client, but a right pain for you because as said above, you may be giving them a quote for work you can't carry out. You could ask the tree owner to discuss their proposed works with your TO, so all three companies would be quoting for the same spec'. As long as the correct planning procedure is adhered to, it doesn't matter who does the paperwork.

The TO or PO will have to make a site visit inspect the tree in regards to your notification / application to carry out work anyway, so it makes sense to involve them before you submit the paperwork and possibly save all parties a lot of time and headache. Of course, that would be an ideal situation. In reality, a lot can depend on the LAs policy on site meetings and time constraints. Generally, most TOs are more than happy to see you to discuss the tree(s) as it will more than likely lead to the best outcome for all

That's where I was heading with my question

Were there any bleeding lesions in the bark before it became totally deaded?

All of that is seriously cool and very, very interesting :thumbup:

That certainly trumps my rescued sparrows I'd love to see those pics

Did you leave it there? A lot of people wrongly assume that owl chicks have been abandoned when they find them in strange places and in "rescuing" them, they are actually seperating them from their parents.

Hahaha, what are you after ? I was about this big when Chorlton became my friend:

I named one of my cats Franella in homage to this

Ben sniggered gleefully when he thought about how he had just super glued the zipper on his office nemisis' whale suit.

Club 18-30 package holiday?

For those of you with excessive amounts of spare money, this AA course on the various methods of tree valuation may be of interest if you want to look into the subject a bit further What's it worth? Tree valuation methods in the UK

That's very interesting reading and thank you for posting it OPM was first identified in it's larval form in this country only in 2006, so the population hasn't had the opportunity to reach such levels where it has caused significant defoliation, either in a single season or year upon year. However, common sense says that in an already highly stressed urban tree population, any additional drain on photosynthate production is going to have consequences. Adult males have infrequently arrived in this country from mainland Europe for many years, with recorded sightings going back to the early 1900s. The Channel has always proved to be an effective barrier to the lazy females, who prefer to stay put and let the males come to them - as it should be . The original outbreak can be traced to a batch of imported Q robur "fastigiata" that were used in a water authority site in Kew, SW London. I don't know where these trees were sourced from. Anacdotally, there was another introduction on some more infested saplings in W London along the A40, which is one of the main routes into the city, but I don't know how accurate that is.

I'm going to confuse you even more and throw another Society at you. They may be of benefit to you if that's a side of your business you offer. Arborist Directory, Tree Valuation, Home Buyers Tree Reports, Tree Preservation, Risk Assessment-Consulting Arborist Society

The OPM egg plaques time their hatching to coincide with the scales on the buds breaking in the spring. For the first few weeks of their life they actually feed in the buds and the newly emerging leaves which are very low in tannins. It's only when they are larger and into their more advanced instars that they move away from feeding on the very tips of the twigs and start to feed throughout the crown. It'd be interesting to find out if the low levels of ingested tannins play any significant part in their predetor deterant stratagy in their first, more vulnerable, instars

It certainly look like it Matt. Have you got all the links to the FC P&D pages? There's quite a bit of info on there about it.

Like any industry, temp' agencies can provide a useful function. I'm already signed up to a few and being on the books of another one only increases my chance of work BUT, agencies are not exactly altruistic and don't always offer a good deal, especially in a niche market where the choices may be limited. I have done a lot of temping tree work over the years for various London LAs and I have found the best way to proceed is to use whatever agencies are already approved by the LA (or other company) offering the work. Then I sign up with whichever one offers me the best deal, regardless of whether they are a specialised arb' company or not. That's my top tip du jour

Just a thought or two of my own on this; in the longer term, wouldn't the amount of available nitrogen still be generally increased as the bacteria themselves die and decompose? And would the benefits of, say, a single application of clippings in sensible amounts (moisture retention, etc, etc) outway the short term reduction in nitrogen? As this is something you know quite a bit about, please educate me

I guessed that after reading your post and then doing a bit of Googling . It's a shame that it clashes with Arb Fair North and Wierd and Wonderful (and MotoGP on't telly). There are too many choices for that day !

I think it will be quite handy if you're out on site and need an emergency tree ident'. Otherwise, for me too it will still be the geeky joy of looking through all my much under used book collection.