Tony Croft aka hamadryad

I will bare that in mind when phoning around:thumbup1:

stick to the sinus'es and avoid the living channels or you will break the boundary

I gave this a lot of thought whilst trying to sleep last night, being a sad git these things tend to overstimulate my mental brain! I wouldnt bother coring it, why? because I can almost predict exactly what pattern and degradation will exist within the buttress region, this is all told in the body languages. The Kretz can be confined by a healthy beech to the sinuses as Guy calls them. These are also associated with a depression going up the stem with Active channels fed by the major roots surrounding them. The tree is becoming discontinuous, and is now more a system of discrete units than one almighty organism. I wanted to see if anyone mentioned the basal buckles! this can be mechanical due to lo residual walls or to Ganoderma decay via selective de-lignification (wrinkly sock- Mattheck) The only thing that's going to cause this tree to fail is the basal area being weakened from within and the full nature of the crown baring down on an aging decaying discontinuous root-crown. I would do a very heavy reduction drop crotching it to 2/3rds its current size and paint the entire remaining branch structure with a lime wash to stop scorch and reflect light back to re growth I would also apply Lime/calcium carbonate/chalk to the base within a mulch to alter the PH and give the beech the best chance its got, they are at home in a chalky soil and acidic conditions in the sucsessional woodland cycle gradually defeat them. Thats why acid beech woodland is biodiverse, an old woodland with acidic fungaly dominant soils and veteran/ancient beeches with dysfunctional volumes in less than chalky conditions.

Yes laetiporus mycelial felts as they are called, and thanks for noting the combined association with Fistulina they do not like being in the same space, competing for the same resources (Cellulose and Hemicellulose) I think she will be just fine and be a mighty impressive veteran as she continues to thrive.

I think there is a lot of tumble weeds up north! in fact even this thread with the mention of north of the watford gap has made one roll by!

I would certainly not think a fell, theres some exudates at the base and she is vulnrable but only with that full crown, shame she has been so thinned out, I maintain I would have them all (thinners ) shot on site!

thats a tricky retention, but achievable

show me the images and I will tell you what i would do, without them its impossible to say, even with photos it can be hard unless well documented.

natural infection? lol are they going to pull the wool over your eyes!

that will do for me

Gutted to be missing this job! nice larches what a shame!

No pics nothing I can do!

Ican!

Hever castle

Im very happy to see this response to such a situation, 300 years is ancient for beech but they can double that maybe more in exceptional (pollarded) circumstances. There is one at Ashridge that is quoted at between 600 -800 years of age although I think the lesser at 600 years is accurate the other is more about playing it up for PR! I measured and aged one with good stats (owned by Gollum) for rings within the area of kent at 428 years old.

That last vid has a lot of truth, but also a lot of playing down. being rather sceptical I expect to see more of the same over the coming months! As I understand it 75 percent losses is conservative for Chalara, Denmark lost 95 % I shall locate the facts on that and return

Well in the case of the above species may well be so, as Darwins view of evolutionary process was very anthropocentric, and as man did indeed see off the others of his kind no doubt good reason to see the logic of the theory of evolution by natural selection. However many other species have many variants even within the same ecosystems, thats the more inclusional evolutionary theory, void filling, life cant stand a vacuum, and allows many of the same species to co exist. I like your train of thought though regarding the permanence of systems, wide scale extinctions have occurred throughout the earths history, life itself as opposed to individual organisms it seems is most adapted to change and pioneering voids and may well be far less fragile than our limited human minds can comprehend.

this is a common Resupinate bark decay fungi found in dark damp woods, I will try and get the name in a moment, seen it loads of times. are you sure the larch lesions are not associated with phytopthora?

sounds like a good idea:001_cool:

You have the potential to be producing good articles, but they will be ill received among many other authors and thinking arbs if you do not ADMIT and acknowledge your sources and you know as well as I and MANY others what I am talking about and we will leave it well and truly there. and save this conversation for a time and place where we can sit down with a pint of ale and have this out without anyone losing face or having an audience! Take that as positive criticism. and NO I wont have the conversation in e mails nor in writing:sneaky2:

absolutely no problem Brett, its not you persay but the downward spiral of death that will ensue when the conversation begins as to how many % this is! this is a forum remember! I am getting a little wise to forums and the way in which the games play out!

you boys! good job I like a bit of banter huh! Dali Hama, mmmmmm I could use that! more like Dali fungali Hama!

Not like the one with the caliper, this is a reiterative root, but It is not one of the ones I was describing which look more like this. here we can see Meripilus doing its thing, and decaying the underside of the bigger main root into a horsheo like form with 45 degree approx re iterative roots coming from the occlusion rolls. Thes act as shear kill in the root plate. I would want personaly to see as many of these as possible going down into the soil at 45 degrees approx, I guess there would be an optimum number per square metre of shear root ball area I can only at this stage guess as to the number required and I would want at least half a dozen in a few square feet of rooting area, indicating good vigour and vitality, and making good adjustments to loads.

hello Paul, Im very well thanks, things are going better than I could really ask for currently. least in some ways! theres always something to moan about isnt there? fingers crossed for a dry and eventful summer next year!

nice example,dont see it on beech that often, hornbeams and birch more commonly:thumbup1: