daltontrees

My guess would be Boletus sp. If so, not a worry and possibly good as a sign of mycorhyzal (dammit I cna never spell that word) activity.

Well put. The difficulty I think lies in the absence of motivation to work on anything that doesn't have a commercial return. I felt this acutely after putting in about 8 hours reviewing and commenting on the draft Bats BS. Why bother? Well I suppose I have to answer that. I did it because the draft was unworkable as a Standard, and someone had to speak up or else no-one would use it. And bats would suffer. Nature needs all the help it can get against clumsy, greedy, ignorant people. But I'll get zero other tangible reward. I'll have to pay to buy the resultant BS. QTRA and TRAQ are both commercially viable from what I can tell. Being a menber of CAS certainly is. I don't see the level of business being there to make Helliwell viable, CAVAT operates in a non-commercial environment. CTLA and the iTree suite have legs. Just. I'd agree therefore with the correlation between use and back-up but also viability. I plan to practice and a member of CAS without using either TRAQ or QTRA. Time will tell whether CAS hitching its wagon to TRAQ comes to reflect badly on it and therefore on its members.

As gerbutt has said, big ones are pretty much in line. So there's no upper limit of size, as the diameter increases the step distance decreases until it's zero. It's very hard to flat fall big branches anyway, and rarely a luxury that's available. I love those occasional days when I get to free fall everything off a big tree. That's when you get to experiment.

Book has arrived, and it is indeed fabulous. Apart from the scientific names being out of date, it is really easy to follow. It is rare to get a book set out in this clarity and structure. Must be a dying art. There's also a nice clear method for making thin sections of wood (for microscope) that will show up the cell walls red and the fungal hyphae blue. Just need to find out where to get some aqueous picric acid!? Thanks for the tip, I would never have thoght to buy this book based on its title alone.

Yes thanks. The CAS certainly isn't the arbiter of which system is better, but it's reason for preferring TRAQ to QTRA is some sort of endorsement of how imprecise the courts allow systems to be. Any truly unfit-for-purpose method of assessing and managing risk woud I expect be discovered by the courts. Judges are under quite a bit opf pressure (as one sees from written appeal decisions) to scrutinise methods and expertise.

A flat fall can be more or less assured by using an outboard step cut, sounds like what the guy was doing.

Fascinating! An alternative is to check a meter on kiln dried wood in nearest buildier's merchants. I used to check mine on any bit iof exposed wood in a centrally heated room. Not a perfect 'absolute' value, but a good relative one.

Since you ask. The E/W Act says that a Notice cannot specify that a hedge be reduced to below 2 metres. The guidance says that if you cut a hedge to any height over 2m and that this will kill the hedge, this is to be taken as the equivalent of reducing it to below 2m. In effect, if the action hedge height will kill the hedge, a higher survivable height must be specified instead even if the adverse effect of the hedge will remain excessive. Reporters (oops, Inspectors) seem to have taken that line consistently. In Scotland there is no such wording in the Act, and decisions are coming out that are saying 'it might kill the hedge, but so be it'. That would be the correct decision under our Act. The owner can then put up a fence of 2 metres instead, which doesn't require planning permission.

I'd go with Acer negundo

I can't state definitively whether you are right or wrong on this. But I can say that I personally disagree very strongly that it's 'no real biggie'. Judges don't give a damn about acronyms, points, systems, but they are there specifically to adjudicate on duties of care and reasonable behaviour between members of society. They are there to imagine what the ordinary man should or shouldn't have done. and that includes whether a professional with a duty of care to a tree-owning client has covered his client's arse or his own. Preferably with something more convincing than a few microns of latex...

Thanks, I hadn't been able to see that when I looeked last week. For the picky, it came into effect the day after it was made therefore 12th March. And then communicated largely by telepathy.

The sort of fun I could do without. I had just taken the laterst Legislation website version and made the latest regulations changes to it. How the heck is anyone meant to know what the rules are? Doesn't it make a mockery of the basic concept of rle of law?

I am currently a danger to other road users, as I am so busy looking around for specimens of this wherever I go that a nasty accident is bound to ensue soon.

I have just wasted a good hour or more trying to figure this out and I give up! I have looked at soooo many species. I saw this plant once before on the south side of Glasgow. And I failed to identify it then, after going through every book I had. I do wish someone would get it.

Right enough. I was just going by the seed pods. I really should have looked at the leaves too. I will have another think...

Koelreuteria paniculata.

I made about 30 comments, glad to hear that nothing jumped out as outrageous in anyones' comments. Mine would the be the exasparated ones starting with a poorly veiled derisive "sorry but this needs re-written in english...". There is a micro-guide or something like that proposed. The usual issue prevails, BSs cost so much that it really stifles or kills off uptake. A cheap opr free 'micro-guide' would be almost essential for anyone outside bat-fondling to bother with this BS. I haven't seen a BS recently with so much information in the body of the text that could be consigned to appendices. If a lot of the repetition were removed by cross referencing, you could probably get the essential guidance and recommendations down to about 10 pages.

If you send me your email address by private message, I will email it to you.

I ahve a full version of the draft if anyone really really wants it for consultation purposes. Far be it from me to breach cpyright on a BS.

2 more days to go on this consultation. I know no-ones posting about it because you're all too busy honing poignant comments for last-minute submission. Personally I can't wait to spend £200 to find out if my comments have been dingied.

Geo XT, it rarely pretends to be better than 1m accurate, but when it's got a fix it's got a fix. U have used the XM too (used to have one) and it was baoutteh same. More recently I was using a Juno and it was saying it was submetre but it was way way off. I don't trust it. Used a BAP all winter, same sort of false accuracy. They both seemed quick to figure out rough position, but no quicker than the Geo in pinning it down. The big difference was the BAP or Juno let you reecord your bullshit position at any time but the Geo makes me wait for a fix. I am generally using PGIS, I have written my own ideal translation schemes and don't need anything else.

You haven't given much information, but it doesn't sound too hard to answer. Is it to buy a processor and install it? If so, who will use the processor? Will there be equal opportunities for the type of person using it? In accordance with your current policy? Does your policy give equal opportunities? If all these are yes, just state the obvious.

And none of this mayhem applies to Scotland. I can't stand even looking to see the situation for Northern Ireland.

The Legislation website does not even have the Regulations as enacted, just the draft undated version. I cannot find any published dated version, stating when the Regulations come into effect.

Sorry, I misunderstood. The Regulations can't change primary legislation but I didn't appreciate that the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 gave the Sec of State powers to change any Act that specifies fines. This has not shown up on the Legislation website yet. Which is quite worrying. Ignorance of the law is not a defence, but how is a member of society to know where he stands? The 1990 Act seems now the be as follows - "210 Penalties for non-compliance with tree preservation order. (1) If any person, in contravention of a tree preservation order— (a) cuts down, uproots or wilfully destroys a tree, or (b) wilfully damages, tops or lops a tree in such a manner as to be likely to destroy it, he shall be guilty of an offence. (2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) shall be liable on summary conviction, or on conviction on indictment, to a fine. (3) In determining the amount of any fine to be imposed on a person convicted of an offence under subsection (1), the court shall in particular have regard to any financial benefit which has accrued or appears likely to accrue to him in consequence of the offence. (4) If any person contravenes the provisions of a tree preservation order otherwise than as mentioned in subsection (1), he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale." Apologies again for confusion.