Tony Croft aka hamadryad

I would have thought that the picus format was a fair relation? does it not show as does the ti dysfunctional and therfore non dysfunctional tissue? sound wood as aposed to non sound? altered as apposed to non altered wood. so your well versed on VTA, but what of the soft rot phenomina? say you have a tree infected with ustulina, but no fruiting bodies ort external symptoms, like deadwood pockets in the root forks of a beech. What then? are you going to drill it on the off chance? or because there is no VTA symptom will you tick the Done box and move on? The TI camera will quickly pick these things up, wouldnt you want to see that defect?

Originally Posted by Tony Sorensen I don't know about that Andrew. We only have to look back through the pic on this thread to see Oak and Plane self graft (or inosculate if we want the botanical term), not typically know for their propensity for limb failure. I see this as an oppourtunistic adaptation that is expressed more in longer lived species by virtue of probability. There is a concept in evolutionary biology - exaptation, used to describe the selection of a side effect of a trait which alters the functions (and usually the expressed form) of that trait. It's a more successful strategy to fuse the tissues together of two competitive branches than to have one 'win' at the expense of the other. Why not keep both if you can? Trees that inosculate easily would also have a structural advantage - increasing their longevity and subsequently their frequency in the population and their reproductive output. I'd agree that we should reconsider the removal of crossing branches. I've never thought it necessary. Let the tree decide what it needs and it will kill off the parts that don't pull their weight by cladoptosis. The same goes for 'duplicated' branches, by the way - whats that about? Isn't all pruning wounding? Perhaps we might even try encouraging inosculation by localised removal of corky phelloderm and the strapping of nearby limbs in place? Thoughts? I think theres a few of us going down this line of thought, Ive never been a big crown thinner/cleaner always feeling that if a branch has begun to fuse as aposed to having too much movement and just rubbing away then it ought to be left, or even assited. I think the potential for increasing bio mechanical optomisation is obvious, I already posted and image that illustrates this perfectly. The perfect bracing system is not far away, and maybe we wont have to worry about included bark in beech and chestnuts quite like we used to. the sooner we look to nature for answers to manafacturing solutions the better.

Stemmed indicates lucidum, good find

I couldnt make it due to my "guest" staying a little longer than anticipated, defo next time.

sorry to hear that fella, not what you need at the start.

Strangley addictive, always fun, somewhat heated but always informative, a great site that i wish I had discovered many moons ago. My thanks go to all who are responsible for making this forum what it is, lets all keep at it and make it bigger and better in 2010. thanks guys Hama

where in the south east are you?

Are they really the custodians of the largest area/mass of tree cover? or is there more on private land and public land overall? and who deals with those trees? us, like you say they know what they have on thier books!

the FC Cares for 827,000 hectares of sustainably managed woods and forests - thats more than 1.4 billion trees Plants more than 17 million trees every year. Employs more 3,000 people - most of them in rural areas Produces more than 5 million tonnes of timber every year. That is almost 44% of UK wood production or 300 forty-tonne truckloads of timber every day Welcomes more than 50 million visitors every year Provides 2,600 km of cycle trails Has 55 visitor centres, almost 500 car parks, and 155 easy access trails Provides 109 forest classrooms or educational facilities Maintains 24,000 km of forest roads – seven times the total amount of motorway in Britain. If it were possible to put them together, they would stretch more than halfway around the world. Welcomes more than 100,000 per year to our concerts in the forest Maintains more than 2,300 bridges Helped expand Britain's woodlands by an area more than three times the size of greater London in the last 20 years

Amazing, do a search for national forestry output and nothing! all i can find is stuff relating to the discussion that a monetary value must be assigned to natural resources if it is to be incorporated in revenue acounting! Am I to believe theres no data? I heard it stated that there are 10,000 approx people employed withing arboriculture? i asume this is not including forestry? there must be figures for the forestry sector somehwere.

we will see old chap! what shall i bring? pack of bacon and a loaf?

I think I am going to have to print that off as a bit of bedtime reading and get back to you on that one. Its great having so many people to talk to, all with their own interests in certain areas. makes you look at things you wouldnt normaly think about. i get so wrapped up in mycology i dont even consider all the wider issues in arboriculture half the time. A quality thread mr sorensen

i quiet like the thought of building my own knife using a blank and a really nice bit of yew for the handle, maybe spalted beech even?

best get your butt down there then, we can all ahve a good laugh at a newbie! you know how we arbs like to take the micheal!

i have to ask does anybody know the figures for estimated output contibutions from forestry versus Arboriculture? is the new bias toward biomass going to further enhance the FC position? What generates more jobs, forestry or arboriculture? with these facts we can begin to wonder and ask questions as to why there is such inbalance in funding and support

Show me round these old trees sometime and I will give you a few tips on cameras! fair exchange!

I reckon this is going to turn out a right good old laugh, i am almost certyainly going to be there, could do with a light intro back into treework after almost 12 days of!

david, you need to familiarise yourself with macro mode! lol sort out your close ups!

nice to see this on an oak, see it with beeches a lot, bit of care she will go on and on

:001_tt2:I wish I had never said anything about pegs! lmao Im only talking one or two here and there not a stump thats covered in them resembling a medievil mace! each to his own, we all get the job done our own ways, thats what matters.

not doubting it but the top ones look odd? all the saddles ive seen tend to rot and go mouldy before they look anything like these? did you see them before they turned? just curious, not familiar with that aged apperance

i think that after the rape of woodlands particuluary the north woods during the war periods tree cover dropped to 8% it now stands at 12% though i may be corrected on these figures? we have a long way to go!

so would you say that spike use was limited in this job? to about 1%!

I dont have any UA certs, what qualifies the right candidate?