Tony Croft aka hamadryad

Not digging you out rob, this is advice! 1) when opportunity presents shorten lever arm, not just take of a parralel branch to bring in the profile. 2) every reduction is being done for a reason, establish the reasons in the case your dealing with and work to THAT purpose because if we dont we end up without achieving the result the complaint maker is expecting, complaints will only remain and the tree owner sees it as a nuisance sometime in the future too, and fells it! depending on the objective I would say youve taken very little from the profile or density, and wasted an oportunity to establish a smaller framework Some portions or limbs you have reduced to the drop crotch method, others the reduction by thin, this can make it look a little "confused" I normaly wouldnt say anything, but I suspect you would want to know:001_smile:

what what! on me way:biggrin:

I can imagine a few decades from now pollarding being an everyday event, servicing the biofuel plants around the country with the "waste" managing trees in the urban context as well this way, just run with it, we used to and have a tree heritage to die for because of it.

nice one, good job.

both and more:thumbup: im planting several this spring, an oak an ash and a beech in my garden, we need them everywhere. though I am thinking large plantations of managed pollards, as both provision of bio fuels and increasing biodiversity, two main goals in one.

youll remember this or recognise it from earlier, this the final prune to set the frame.

I had to as well! yes it does, pines yes, obviously its not that fussy:thumbup:

My boss told me he had seen a big beech failure not a million miles from home, but in the opposite direction to home, so been waiting for an early finish. It was indeed a fine failure and well worth the trip. As we can see there is intense white rot , the fungi in this case is I suspect Ganoderma australe, but what we also see in attendance is kretzschmaria deusta in a vein of dysfunction that extended right up into the stem and probably an old dead root trace back to a long dead limb. From my short investigation I deduced that this pocket had been completley rotted out by Kretzschmaria deusta complete with psuedosclerotial plates walling off the gano that had colonised all but a thin band of sapwood (T/R was over the limits by a long chalk) Only when the vitality had been compromised by this invasive and very agressive Gano species had the kretzschmaria found a way into new volumes and one can see the defined zones and the clear division between the hard brittle (soft rot) via the Kretzschmaria and the ductile failure in the white (simaltaneous rot) Ganoderma. This one really got my juices flowing!

on pinus sylvestris? do they associate? potentialy then

Ted is a leg-end aint he! always a good crack with Ted, I wish I could spend more time with him, I love his banter:thumbup: Got a nice pollard, a proper working firewood pollard from the urban context, a rare thing but on the increase again especialy in the town fringes. I can see it happening all over again, and it fills my heart with joy, in a few more years chip and gassification boilers will be normal, and trees wil once again be worked as we had done for so many centuries before. I had intended to give up practical arboriculture, but now im not so sure, I may diversify my business and offer planting and management of sustainable pollards for fuel. Some of us are old enough to still know how to do it properly!

its about time robarb did some big trees!

In the u.k I would ad ash and sycamore to that list, let these wild pioneers return the site to nature, what they do best:thumbup1:

G. pfeifferi, nice shot too

this tree could easily be felled under the dead diseased and dangerous claus, just document it as you have here and send it to the council to with a notice of intent, give them 7 days plus back it up with a phone call. the fungi on roots ARE mycorrhizea

good to hear andy, on the mend mate:thumbup:

its rocket science cutting them trees you know!

tarts!

with a little help some wind and rain and she is down, thing is, would you wanna hear that someone was under it after we left it! the safe mode, throw line, get a rope round as high as poss and pull in direction away from other half till failure, it wont take much!

ive done several trees that where split from a hole to cake hole, one struck by lightning and half the stem was gone (longtitudinaly, the wobble was most unatural, like a wave motion rather than a swaying! and the remaining crown on top of this had a very wierd rotational sway! orrible:biggrin: not as knarly as the seqioua though, lightning again, trunk into 6 segments again longitudinally. stoopid is as stoopid does!

as matt said, its honey fungus and the sap is oozing (under spring pressure) from the cambium breaks

Yesterday I found myself in one of those high gear well up for it modes, smashed out a section fell (2ft diam beech (forest grown) waste of timber but they had it split for firewood so all good in the hood, then ran up a big beech and raced round a reduction, and then really lovely swinging fast hitch decent landing on the next tree to be reduced, ran round that double quick singing along to myself. One of those really nice days that was a perfect climb and ran rings round everyone else, I love my work. felt my lats today though!

Interesting footage Dave, looks like a separation shear between two butresses, probably a bit of decay and going in a devils ear style failure, pure assumption, just like thinking about these things. I know what I would do, but thats me. I wouldnt pass a recommendation on this footage alone.

ha ha ha, just did a google on "mutse atsi" and came here! lol reading through gave me some giggles, crikey I like a rant!

a small black beetle, Dorcatoma ambjoerni, is a real specialist as it has been found only inside hollow beeches, in the fruiting bodies of the bracket fungus, Inonotus cuticularis.

sorry to hea about your eye James, get to the docs! and no fighting especialy boxing wont have done your eyes any good!