daltontrees

So how many arboriculturists does it take to change a lightbulb? Whoa, steady on, I mean I know the lightbulb isn't actually shedding light on anything but do we really need to change it...?

Different symptoms, agreed. Entirely different animals? I don't think so. They both involve failures at the extreme end of perfectly normal loadings. Who is to say that the biomechanical or maybe even biochemiocal or biophysical explanation for why wood fails in any situation isn't shared in quite a lot of ways between codominant union failures, normal (perpendicular) union failures and Sumer branch drop failures? And that's even before we try to examine the similarities between the circumstances (summer, heavy rain and so forth) of SBD and this Willow's failure for common ground. C'mon, you encourage open-mindedness, I would be disappointed if you don't share at least a slight hankering to understand the mechanisms of structural weakening in summer situations that seems to manifest itself in sudden failures in a slight breeze which astonish and confound on trees that have withstood screaming hurricanes in the preceding winter. Tell me one more time they are not linked? maybe I am being too sniffy. Dogs and cats are different animals, but they both have 4 legs.

Me! me! meeee!

Extra weight and increased static load may be one of the factors in summer branch drop. I'm kind of convinced it is.

Interesting! The fork looks like it was intact until failure, and the 'mould' must surely have come from within. Do you think the brown wood at the centre of the stem is consistent with rising internal decay? Since you pointed it out to me a couple of years ago, I have been noticing that L.s seems readily to exploit internal cracks in Willow from the bottom up with little or no aeration.

Are you thinking it exhibits some of the signs of summer branch drop?

I really really don't think it's K.d. Looks like a slowly occulding would from the removal of an upright basal epicormic or substem. Could me any manner of bacterial infection or may not be infection at all. What think others?

Good to hear a recommendation like that.

An epilogue to this comon ownership subject. I now have another case where a common ownership tree is causing no end of diffculties. How do I know it is commonly owned? Because one owner had all the land and subdivided it a while ago and specified that the trees were the boundary. He now fnds himself potentially unable to get access to his site because the tree is in the way and the neighbour is not agreeing to its removal. Even if another access can be found, part of the site cannot be developed because low-hanging branches on the development site are in common ownership. Create a common onwership in haste, repent at leisure. And your descendents. And theirs. I am going to have to dig deep into common law to extrapolate the law set out in Mynors, because I cannot accept that the law intends that ones property can be rendered useless by common ownership branches. Aaargh!

Thanks, they look like a good outfit.

Hello can anyone help me out with a recommendations for good tree surgeons (not necessarily the cheapest but can work to exact spec in Conservation Area) operating in the Bicester area and also any local supplier of nursery trees (nothing fancy, pine and spruce). Because I am not from the area it would help a great deal to have someone from Arbtalk whose opinion I can rely on to suggest someone for me. Thanks in anticipation.

Not an ideal picture for a definitive ID. There's not many trees with such large pinnate leaves, Tree of Heaven and Wingnut already been mentiond. I saw a tree last week in Lancaster I thought was Tree of Heaven, turned out to be a Walnut.

I don't know the history except that the tree was left as a monolith a couple or few years ago. No bark whatsoever so I guess that's a 'dead'. I would love to get back soon and see how the new FB has developed, but I'm rarely in te neighbourhood.

Established and emerging Polyporosus squamosus, near Glasgow, last week.

As with all the best reductions you can hardly tell from a distance that this one has been done. I am curious to know whether the fungal development has been faster, slower or normal after the reduction. I tend to assume that reduction can reduce the likelihood of failure but sets the tree back in energy terms, reducing the fight-back. Or is there some third possibility that the invigoration of the tree due to reduction improves fight-back?

You got the same answer as me, I will be soooo impressed if you manage to get a substantially different answer. I just kept the thing simple for kids to do. I didn't leave ash out deliberately, I just couldn't work it in there, due to there being no other s or h to use and a already being taken up.

Well done! PM me your address and the ident book will be on its way to you. Don't hold your breath, though, it's not my favourite tree book.

PS first correct answer wins a tree ident book.

Something to while away a couple of idle minutes, I created it for kids while pondering just how many tree names have only 3 letters in them.

There's only one issue here, and that is how much of the roots and soil need to remain undisturbed to ensure the ongoing vitality of the trees. RPA is just a first guess, and a relatively easy way out. If the simple RPA method is not appropriate, for whatever reason, it's up to you to satisfy the Council that any encroachment into the rooting area (not the RPA) will not damage the survival of any of the trees. The centre line or skew I expect is an irrelevance. Forget the RPA cop-out and try and justify a linear extent of root protection. That's my view anyway.

I'm going to breenge in to this debate a bit late. According to the RFS Norway Spruce "Timber is pale cream; often called ‘whitewood’ with no colour difference between heartwood and sapwood, and only a subtle difference between the pale spring wood and darker summer wood in each annual ring." The discolouration in the pictures must have additional explanations. The wide variation in ring widths suggests a chequered history for this particular tree. possibly having suffered and recovered from significant crown damage and/or partial windthrow (with root crown damage) a few years back. Can the OP confirm whether the rest of the tree was normal, i.e. excurrent single leader no big past breakages?

I use a smal maillon, just fits over the spliced end if rope, makes it through the big ring and not through the small one. Indestructible and the rest of teh time can be used for other purposes or kept securely on your gear loop.

Chill out everybody, we're just kicking some numbers about to see wherther Wagener and Mattheck are consistent. Wouldn't buy a used tree from either of them, as it happens, But |I think it is interesting to see that both their formulae result in the same thing, namely at t/R greater than 0.35 they both say strngth isn't compromised. As ever, anyone using a lower t/R ratio to justify tree removal without any other reasons is a twit or a fraudster.

Well you did ask. Unfortunately the scan is upside down again. Can't seem to fix it. First and second page fairly self explanatory, interestingly Wagener and Mattheck arrive at the same result (see end of second page) about the critical value for strength loss. Third page is attempt at the calculus. I tried derivation can't be done so I tried antiderivative by integration, basically every time you integrate you add unknown constants and by second antiderivative you are sunk. Would like to see th actual hosepipe kinking or shell buckling equatiion, because that's what is missing and what cannot possibly be derived by calculus. img017.pdf

Thanks for the Bond article, looks good for a mid-morning tea-break read. I certainly am hoping to be able to reach a firm personal view on t/r ratios that I can bring to bear on my professional judgements, and this is all helpful. It is a principle I have had a pre-view on until now but the answer is becoming clearer ad clearer. Poor Gary, bet he wishes he'd never asked.... But the best forms of education are the ones where you are not credited for getting the right answer but for showing that you understand why it's right, and its limitations.