daltontrees

I don't see a 2 input system being useful as a risk management tool but you could just about get away with it as a risk assessment tool. It's the time spent pondering it that teaches you though, isn't it, rather than by getting the answer right? And if you also learn along the way that it's difficult, then that's probably a valid conclusion. What would we all do if consultancy work was so easy and simple that anyone could do it? I hope you mean Matheny & Clark and not the recent Matheny-assisted ISA system. I would never use the latter unless I was told to be the client and even then I would be caveating my reports to say that I thought the outcomes are inherently crude and unreliable for some purposes. It has 24 possible outcomes, each of which has to fall into one of 4 categories. The M&C 1994 has 24 also but oddly has 12 possible categories, which is better.

I fear so too, but I think I will persever because it would be a mistake to assume that anything resolved here on Arbtalk will reach even the Arbtalk members never mind the wider arb community and across the pond. Surely only peer-reviewed publication can do that? And if nothing gets resolved or emerges then my energies will not be wasted because after all an article is just one person's opinion. And if I incorporate any useful parts from this debate in an article I will give credit where it is due. I stand to get nothing but more grey hairs from publication, and quite honestly I don't care who gets the credit for advancement of best practice as long as no-one is trying to pass off others' work as their own.

I woudl agree with you. Not on the HS stuff, that's ALL yours.

The exception that proves the rule. If this happens the segmented tree on the 'adopted owner''s land is an encroachment and just like any other tree encroachment that owner can tolerate it or remove it at his will. But if you consider the situation to be like an acorn falling across a fence, that is not encroachment if the owner there allows it to grow. He owns it all as it is the produce of his soil. That's my view anyway. I may be wrong as I haven't had my mid-morning caffeine blast yet and may be letting fancuful notions of arboriculture block the path of Okkam's Razor.

AS posted a few minutes ago, I am sure there is no such thing as apportioned ownership, it is either one person's or it is common, and in the latter case as a result of agreement. There can be no 'minority owner'. I for one am therefore not going to even try and discuss.

Just to be really really clear about this, if a tree is planted or an acorn allowed to grow even an inch inside one man's boundary, the whole tree is his property and his responsibility regardless of whether it comes later to straddle the boundary. The joint onwership (and I use that term in a loose sense for now, see below) only applies when a tree is ON the boundary (and it is assumed deliberately so and with the full knowledge, if not agreement, of both owners). There should never be a situation where ownership cedes to the encroached party in any proportion. Your citations of Lemmon v Webb, Ricjardson v Jay and Heatherington v Gault support this. But I hope we can dismiss the myth of anyone becoming a part owner of a tree when it grows across a boundary. Trees have no legal rights, duties or will, and it must always come back to teh actions or teh inactions of the landowner on which the tree originated either by planting or being allowed to gernminate, establish and grow. The terminology gets a little confusing. Lemmon v Webb, an english case, uses the term 'tenants in common' for the true boundary tree. Heatherington, a scottish case uses the term 'common property' for the same situation. Richardson uses 'owners ... in common'. Then we have the question of whether one of the owners can cut the tree down the middle, and in so doing kill it. The law seems really clear on common property, one owner cannot cut the tree down without the other owner's permission, as this would destroy the subject of the 'tenancy in common'. He can remove parts of it on his own side though. In Richardson the judge 'did not know' whether one owner could cut the tree in half longitudinally. The matter remains untested and unresolved. My instinct (so don't quote me on it) is that cutting the tree down the middle and inevitably killing the tree in the process would amount to abuse of common ownership since it also destroys the subject of 'tenancy in common'. But here's where my scots law knowledge may not be entirely transferrable to england. We have what is known as 'constructive total destruction' which means something damaged so badly that it might as well be considered in law as totally destroyed. Whehter that amounts to english 'ouster' in tree cases is beyond me. But again just falling back on instinct and the actions of reasonable people, I am fairly sure that anyone destroying his half of common property and in so doing setroying teh other man's half is depriving that man. Call it theft, call it what you may, but it cannot be right.

I am very interested, if you have something substantial enough to need a bit of legal steering, it sounds exciting and worth a debate. Likewise I think I have quite a few fresh perspectives on tra that are worth discussing. I have a vast wad of research papers and workings that are ready for peer review, and if all this suff hadn't come up it would probably be with Taylor & Francis by now. Discussion with like-minded (and refreshingly non-tree) friends over the weekend is beginning to persuade me that my line of thinking would be be stronger if supported with some further research which I think I can turn around in 2 months. Let's open the channels of communicaton as wie as we dare as soon as we dare. Everyone.

All good, all I meant was that any discussion about tree risk assessment without being able to cite published scholarly articles or practice notes is going to be difficult. So for example I would rely on Matheny & Clark's important published work, and Mike Ellison's too, and others like Lonsdale, Barrell and some less obvious ones that are not specifically about trees. I was never suggesting that I could snipe with impunity from an Arbtalk bunker. I don't seek or want immunity from criticism. The key is what I think criticism means. In common language it nusually means slagging off, knocking, having a go at etc. But if you go bac t the dawn of civilisation it is possible to indetify that criticism can and did mean something ese, namely (and these days we have to add a word of clarification)' constructive criticism. What arb culture just called keeping it positive. It is the defining quality of philosophy.

Maybe I can help? The folly as ever is in assuming that there is one rght answer. Answers only ever come from questions, the clearer the question, the clearer the answer. Someone poses a question on Arbtalk. Someone else jumps to a few innocent conclusions, makes some assumptions, uses fragmented experience, relies on imperfect authorities and dives in with an answer with the best of intentions. What was the original question? Oh yeah, a tree none of us has seen may or may not be close to the centre of a boundary line that may or may not be defined or provable. Here's the answer. None of us know enough to to say what the answer is. Sure, we can say if A is the case and B is the Case and C is not the case then the answer is in the absence of improbable and undisclosed circumstances the answer is D. Whe workign as a trainee surveyor I came acrosos a fairly frequent stipulation in title deeds. When someone split the ownership of a bit of land, they stated in the deeds that the new owner must plant a line of boundary trees or ahedge and that thereafter it woud be maintained as a boundary at mutual expense. Compare that with the situation that nature creates. The acorn falls and flourishes and no-one stops it. On the one hand, despite the fundamental that a tree must start on one side or the other and therefore be one person's or another with all other growth being an encroachment, if two people agree that a tree or line of trees be planted to be the boundary and to be mutually maintained, a different sort of law supplants the law that governs natural generation. On the other hand, the natural tree on one man's land encroaches with hair-thin roots which unabated thicken till their encroachment becomes nuisance. The law on this is clear, it doesn't start to be jointly owned when it grows up, it always has been one man's or the other's. And in the middle, if ownership is unknown or can't be proven, the law has evolved another set of remedies to deal with ambiguities. The only difficulty is lack of facts about the case and getting uppity in the defence of unstated jumped conclusions and assumptions.

The bridge is held on by those two little shackles. They have a nylock-type locking ring inside them. My guess would be that if you take this on and off a few times you wold marginally increase the possibility of it unscrewing itself. But you'd probably still need a pair of pliers to do it. I have had mine on and off a couple of times, but when last I renewed the saddle I renewed the shackles too, just for overkill safety. As for using it as a full body harness, it appears to be designed to take the upper part for this but I have no interest whatsoever in such a thing. After all, chest harnesss are intended for helping fall arrest, whereas arb harnesses are meant for work positioning in the 'sit' position. I just can't imagine a fall arrest use, unless you're going up in Mewps. Which I would only do as a last resort because consider it safer in small to midsize trees to be working from a top anchor than from a basket. I can't actually remembe the Mewp requirment but I have a vauge recollection that a 500mm max fal is tolerable and tha this can be achieved in a Mewp with a short lanyard. I hope this helps.

Cheers, Solomon. Inevitably reference to QTRA, as in the system and not its company or any individuals, is bound to come up, and I think it would be somewhat artificial to discuss the quantification of tree risk assessment without using QTRA as a reference source, but personally I would be happy not to go beyond the published and free to use practice note available at their website. Similarly with THREATS and the ISA stuff and any other methodologies in the public domain. Would it also be appropriate to state from the outset that anyone using any principles or techniques of tree risk assessment discussed or offered on this site do so entirely at their own risk without liability to Arbtalk or the individual contributors? If such a generalised disclaimer is understood by one and all then people may be able to express themselves more candidly without having to add a postscript of disclaimers and caveats at the end of every posting? If so, roll on Wiki-tra, and I will switch off the lawyer on my shoulder who is always tut-tutting at me.

I have a pair of swivel krabs on my Treeflex, absolutely indispensable! Would go out of my mind without them.

Thanks, not so well actually due to a shoulder injury so I am choosing my tree jobs carefully. Consultancy going well though, so am getting by somehow. Probably got too much thinking time and so am posting more frequently than the typical lack of feedback suggests is worthwhile...

I too would be interested n the authorities on this. It seems to go against some pretty fundamental tenets of law.

...can't we have one tiny part of the world wide web where t.r.a. can be discussed without fear of being badgered?

Can see the pictures now. Looks a nightmare to get back together. I imagine returning it to Top Dead Centre could help.

Working on Ryobis is for me a true nightmare. I have taken the view in the past that they are so cheap and parts are so dear and everything about tehm is difficult to work on that you somethimes have to cut your losses and chuck out the badly broken ones. The link doesn't work. I have a 4046C that I would like to nurse back to helth but I think has a scored cylinder or workn ring, so I'd love to see what they look like inside.

That's good advice.

I am having good results painting the ends once with 50:50 turps:varnish mix. If anyhting it takes the wood lonmger to season because it can only dry out through the sides. As seventh devil says, choose species that dont have high shrinkage. Ash for example (and your photo looks like Ash) is ridiculous for shrinkage. You can hear cracking in stems as you ar dismantling them, as radial tension is released. Conifers at the nodes can't crack and the grain effect is fabulous.

I think it's officially Auricularia auricula-judae, but the politically correct mob don't call it jew's Ear it's now Jelly Ear.

First and only time I tried VT I decked it in slow motion from about 5 metres up. Never going to use it again!

Gordon Bennett, this is a bit of a floaty thread. After years of experimentation I have fond that 1.6m of 'wasp' is the optimum length. Tie a double fishermans with 2 inch tails when hand tight then tighten it with all the strenght and weight in your body. I put mine over the washing pole, put a brick at the bottom of the pole, put a spade in the loop and its end against the brick and pull like hell. It will be so pre-tightened that NO-ONE will ever get it undone. Then tape down the ends to stop them catching on things or use shrink wrap (put it on the loop before tying the knot!). It works at 1.6m with a 3 wrap prussik or Schwabian or Blake's. If you use a 2 wrap, you'll need a shorter loop and so a shorter length of rope. I buy 10 metres at a time, gets me 6 loops and an offcut. Works out at about £2 a loop. Disposable! I would strongly recommend experimenting with other hitches after you get comfortable with a Prussik Hitch. It's a no-brainer knot but really irritating in practice after a while.

Tentatively count me in, resistance to QTRA is futile and I am willing to spend some time on an open system. However, as stated elsewhere I am already quite far on with a publishable article with that in mind and wouldhave to be cautious about going off half-cock. I think Acer is right (gosh did I really agree with him...?) about keeping it contained initially. If you send me a PM I could to and fro with you for a bit until it is ready to go public.

As I recall Mike Ellison published his original article about QTRA in 1985 in the AJ. Surely it is his? Personally I have independently evolved a quantified TRA system, possibly having common ancestry in Matheny & Clark but also in standard tree risk practice of people I know who are professional risk managers. I even did someting similar when I was a surveyor dealing with investment risk management. The fundamentals definitely can't be anyones intellectual property.

That's absolutely right. All subsequent growth that crosses the boundary, be it stem, roots or branches, is an encroachment. In no way does part of the tree accrue in ownership to the neighbour once it is in his soil and airspace. Knowing where the acorn landed may be literally impossible to tell. The stem may be asymmetric because of reaction to weather. If it's too close to call, you may have to arrive at a pragmatic view. If both would-be owners are happy to see it go and there are no statutory protections, go it may. If one resists, think again. In theory by law you wold be entitled to saw the tree vertically right down it stem at the boundary, and take your 'half' away. This would inevitably kill the tree. But if it's the neighbour's, you are still within your rights because you are removing a trespass. Building a raft over tree roots may avoid damaging them but will probably kill them anyway. Paying for some advice at this stage frm someone who can see the whole tree in context, who can ask follow-up questions in real time and who knows the local council's position on such trees could save you a lot of grief and money in the long run. Here on the sofa it's interesting to speculate and good to try and help, but it's never going to be as good as 'paid' advice. Qualified, insured, expereineced written advice.