Tony Croft aka hamadryad

dont let anyone mug you off! a fit lad in his twenties is worth a nifty of anyones dough, experianced or not! You cheeky toads!

I feel for the guy who fells that when fully occluded! Its actualy probably a good thing, claus reccomends gabions filled with rock inside large cavities as a fill, if nothing else it would stop those little scrotes burning them out. We lost a nice vet beech at Whippendell last year to Pyromaniac kids

Only slightly! come on arbs are nutters!

So your more than willing to just fell any tree that displays a meripilus bracket without any further justification, bearing in mind this will often be a mature beech of high value/amenity?

The bottom line is that when we reduce thin lift or whatever, we are removing the trees food production facility. Too much and the tree (understandably0 goes into panic or shock using massive quantities of stroed sugars, sugars that are reserved for a natural catastrophe such as a limb loss or invasive force like fungi. When we reduce heavily we temporarily weaken the trees imunal defence and this is one of the major reasons trees in the urban environment suffer so greatly. Sensitive (leaf area) pruning and smaller wounds is the right approach, but it is ALWAYS a compromise in the urban environment, there is just too little sympathy and empathy for the tree.

One thing most guys forget to think about when reducing is eveness of foliage, with great skill and a lot of thought you can reduce a crown considerably whilst retaining an even structured foiliage mass that will generate JUST enough shade to the inner crown to keep regrowth to sensible limits. Most regrowth from reduction is generated as a response to light penetrating the inner structure or scafolds, this is why thinning is so pointless. maintaining as much internal growth as is physicaly possible helps reduce that horrible excurrent regrowth habit of most deciduos trees.

Now theres a serious question! And before i answer it i will state that I do not yet know/understand the full extent of these variations yet, some may be totaly irrelevant! Some forms seem, as JFL suggests, to have a darker upper surface and a thicker more robust profile, which shows at the lip/cap edge. These also seem to be quiet "warty" at least often enough to note, and a deeper yellow/orange, underside or pore surface, which yes they all seem at first emergence. The other form seems to be much thinner in section, with bigger fans, or fronds a much more "open structure" and a paler yellow. I think that what i think may be a potential third form could well be the same as the thinner more open form, just better nourished and in "optimum condition/s" This potential third I believe is where this fungus derived its common name "the giant polypore" this form I have only seen twice, and it is remarkably and very notably larger than the other "forms" ive seen. This is simply an observation and has no scientific/research or factual basis, but isnt that where it always starts? Of course I may well be talking utter rubbish, but I'm o.k with being proven wrong or having someone point me in the right direction! At the end of the day if I speak from the heart and mind i will at least get a response and find people that can and will have these conversations! This kind of information is just so hard to come by, its a lonely world for the mycology freaks! were a rare breed it seems.

I would also add that efficiency is a skill like any other, a quick and efficient climbergroundie combo is going to be able to outcompete a lesser crew, Whilst some of us can do 2 V/large reductions a day others will be pushing 1 maybe 1 and a half, they might have to charge 350 a day cos its going to take them the best part of two days, wheras a better crew will charge 600 for the one day and still be cheper!

Is everone also taking into account that there is really officialy only 48-9 working (five day) weeks in the year? bank holidays etc five weeks paid leave. You have to cover that time to be running "properly"

note to self, PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR TYPOS! Facultive, is facultative really correct?

The cost of being an arborist? a LOT more than just money!

I dont know what you mean by stand still? that was wages for me and a groundie, new truck and chipper at five year intervals constant CPD and training, advertising, accountancy etc? I went tits up because I threw everything I had into it, I was "avoiding" the critical thing to keep my costs down, tools cover and after getting hit four times for the saws and hedge gear blowers that stuff, I had maxed out on C-cards and all my stash. that was over a twelve 18month period, it was targeted because i had over three years sown my local area up pretty much and the "local camps" didnt like it! the last straw was the van and chipper from outside the house, finished me off. during this period of being hounded, I was on/off then splitting with an abusive alchaholic GF, my elderly uncle whom I cared for and had lived with for ten years (learning Impaired guy/downes poss) contracted liver cancer and died within two weeks of diagnosis. I then had to fight my mother and her sister for possesion and had to mortgage the house to stay in my home. I then walked into my docs broke down in tears and asked for a shrink before I went (already had!) completley off the rails. My business was a raging succses untill these sorry unfortunate and life changing situations that all came at once, most people would have failed to keep fighting so i think i can be justifiably proud of myself for still being here, alive and well and looking at my career again!

Thats the same question as asking your doctor when that cancer is going to kill you, and we still are not certain that meripilus is always a failure scenario. The paper linked in my thread by Julian forbes laird indicates the potential for two forms of Meripilus, one more saprobe than pathogen, the other with a more facaltive strategy. I have my eyes on a dozen beech with Meripilus, when one fails i will have a good idea of a ball park figure, but each case is different and as JFL points out the worst cases nigh on always involve "interferance" buy man. What I mean to say is that Meripilus is in the forest like Armillaria, ubiquotus and ever present, just part and parcel of the diversity of the arboreal eco system. There the Fungus is held off and out competed often by other fungi in a diverse healthy forest eco system. When you have a tree in an urbanised zone, or under considerable human interaction you have a number of factors affecting the flora and fauna of the rhizosphere and meripilus can and does frequently monopolise the stressed tree in the urban context. The less disturbance the better the long term prognosis i suspect.

Figure 6.2 page 198 "tree hazard assesment and managment" Lonsdale This goes a long way into dealing with the complexity of the issues surrounding interpretation of "reduction" I would reccomend anyone who needs a better understanding of this problem read this passage in particular. I would say MOST clients want D of the four sketches in the page mentioned, with B being the better option and C being the happy medium and compromise. This is a good passage to show clients in order to explain the differences in "arborists terminology" as there is a great void between what WE think of as truly representing 30% and what clients EXPECT 30% to be as an outcome. This is a bone of contention and dissagreement best sorted at the quotation stage! When you think of 30% it is to most people almost a third, the public percieve this as you would expect by hieght and spread and they visualise it this way, hence the frequent dissapointments some clients will have with what spec they was quoted for.

Well thats a lesson learnt for me then, seems I had the wrong impression of the Fear or favour part.

I thought the tech cert was an intermediate qual for lower ranking surveying etc? rather than full blow decay detection and more advanced consultation work?

David, I've noticed a lot of missing letters in spellings and one the coprinus comatus is miss labeled is there any way to get these cleared up? I must take more care when typing!

has it been grouped with the hericiums then? would make sense. They change the names of so many so much its hard to keep up! I know that a lot of the coprinus genus have been broken up into a sub division or two as well but not seen any thing specific on this yet.

I dont know of any specific courses on increment cores? anyone?

Bless! could be a gas pipe leak/sewerage from flooding etc etc etc maybe its rooted into a drain and the next door nieghbour just changed his oil DIY style! it could be ANYTHING

For those missing the point due to bitty info. An employee can do the LOLER checks as long as there is a signed recording of a statement cleary stating that "no fear nor favour" is applied. the boss cant do it iether, nor would they want to it is a mind numbingly tedious boring job that i loathe we check ours weekly each and every item nut bolt and washer, then doug does it proper every six months, and it takes him a day to do four kits plus lowering maybe 1 and a half days. but hes aslow lazy toad anyway!

tis a problem with horizontal movement on glass poles, whats the hyuchi pole like? thought about having one myself to replace the old jamesons.

When I ran my own firm (liquidated june 2005) i was charging £250 a day, went to 350 a day and then I realised I had to get realistic if I was going to get ahead and run tings properly so i sat down and did a repsectable budget, new chipper every five years truck same, training ppe costs all told i worked out i needed 511 pound a day inclusive, and that was 5 year ago!

well 10% is better than a friend of mine whos done ten days in the last ten weeks, hold tight mate, it will get better eventualy.

lol I can name drop too, aint my style though. It is cool when you get to meet some folk though and know what they are REALLY like.