daltontrees

Looks like he's been using a 1:1 petrol:oil mix too. Classy.

Oh the pain, I have been opening the .tsp scheme files in Notepad, manually adding, amending and deleting and moving around lines of code and then reconverting to .tsp and adding to PGIS. I am currently just about there with the perfect .tsp which groups data logically for different types of survey so that it can be used for any survey because you can just skip whole pages in the field with a touch of the stylus. Means I can import and process any survey into my standard spreadsheet without amending it too. Sure, I have to hide some unused fields for reporting, but these are set as standard 'hides' too. Did you find any tricks for manually adjusting .tsps? I have a feeling there's no shortcut.

Yeah, lucky you! I often have to spend whole days surveying in constant rain, puddles of water colecting on teh screen and having to be wiped off every 30 seconds. Also I have done days on end in sub-zero temperatures when a swipe-screen device is pretty hopeless because if you took your gloves off to use them you would literally have frostbite by mid morning. There's definitely not just one right solution, but in the west of scotland I assume the worst and have chosen kit accordingly. The Touch £G seems unbelievably cheap, I think it is now discontinued but can still be bought. Does it import GPS co-ordinates into a spreadsheet automatically?

Second hand Geo XT, new Pocket GIS license nd various bits and bobs plus an oldish laptop as I had to have Active Sync and Windows Mobile and prefer the old Excel. Am also using free trial period dwg/dxf converters as I don't need them often enogh to justify buying a CAD license. And none of tis produces plotting of RPAs or crown spreads or CEZs. I nwold accept that if you have the technical expertise and time and determination you could crack some of this a lot cheaper but if you were to put your normal charge-out rate against the time you are likely to spend on it you might like me wish you had just bought PT Mapper/GIS and a new Juno bnecause it would have been cheaper in the end. From recent experience using a Juno and Geo on the same survey job, the Juno is quicker and if that can improve your productivity on site by even 5% a day it will soon pay dividends. Tablets aint waterproof (even with Gumboy covers) and the batteries don't last (and I mean after a few months of cold weather their life shortens dramatically) and they will get damaged and they are just about useless in the cold when gloves are needed. A stylus solution is the only one. And not one of these pantsy capacitative ones, miy lat one lasted less than a day outdoors. I use a Dell Axim pda for collecting data with a spreadsheet for sites that have already been mapped by me on the Geo, it is easy to merge spreadsheets afterwards. But they are hopeless in the wet and using them through a waterproof cover is torture for me. It is the use of something in the cold and rain day after day that means the only solution for me is based around an indestructible stylus-based long battery life completely waterproof mapper e.g Trimble/Thales. Using Pocket GIS can be teeth-splittingly frustrating at first, try reading the operating manuals (there are two) and you will soon lose the will to live. Try as I have (I've almost cracked it) editing and creating your own translation scheme and you will be punching the walls. Tey are based on an old file format that operates on a zero tolerance of mistakes basis in the programming. But because it can be set up with drop-down pick-lists (these are grenerally freely avalable, pm me and I can tell you where to get one legitimately or you can have one of mine) it can vastly speed up data collection and you might soon find that 99% of the time a big screen is not needed. Besides, try shoving a big screen in your pocket. I'd be interested to hear if you go for a DIY solution and if you achieve it and at what cost.

Meant to say, I have just put a set-up together on a shoestring budget, cost me £1.5k. That's with legit software licenses and kit that can withstand 6 hours in the rain (yesterday) and being dropped 4m onto rocks (today). You get what you pay for. If you magage ot for a few hundred, patent it and don't tell anyone how you did it.

A few hundred quid? You're having a laugh!

Sorry, I thought you were gong to look at Sinclair or Greig. I've already stated all that S,E & M said about it.

No idea! Maybe you could send a message to Barchams and ask them to clarify. All the suggestions are that the definitions are from 3936 1992 but if you've looked at it and drawn a blank I can't think of anything else.

I'd be keen to hear what you find out. I have defiunitely seen examples of K.d whole-tree failures that had no outwrd signs of infection and no above-surface sapwood entry point anywere near th failure zone. It has always suggested dead taproot entry. Armillaria as an actively pathogenic infecter seems consistent with its mode of cambium killing, but it is a much bigger step in my mind for a heartwood rotter like K.d to cross the cambium on the way in.

Found it! "Fungal Strategies ..." Schwartze Engels and Mattheck p84 says '... Greig's study (1989) on a horse chestnut avenue indicates that Ustulina [sic] deusta may also spread from affected trees to healthy trees via root contacts. Moreover there are indications that the fungus can spread in the soil in mycelial formand infect neighboring trees (sinclair et al 1987).' I suspect that I have both the referred publications, but that's enough for one evening's research. what think you or anyone about the possibility of active pathogenicity in K.d?

OK, I,ll try and track it down over the next couple of days. I came across a good case today, k.d up at 3m on an old substem breakage on a Norway Maple (1200mm diameter), rarely seen it so high up but the rotted stub was caked wit telemorphs. I couldn't believe it was compartmentalised to just one side of the tree in saprophytic mode, so I took an increment bore on the adjacent stem, and there it was about 2 inches in. Alas the whole tree may have to go.

I recall reading somewhere (either Mattheck or Lonsdale) that there is some evidence that K. deusta may be actively pathogenic. Have you come across this? It might also need nothing other than a dead tap root site to gain entry and, being capable of working in anaerobic or near anaerobic conditions, it can be hollowing out a butt with no outward sign of infection and very litte evidence of canopy decline until the last few years.

I love the Botanics, could easily spend a week there. But if you really want to do it properly, you could spenda week doing the entire Botanics. Some of the sites are more suitable than others for some tree types, for example Benmore for conifers. So you could start in Edinburgh, go to Dawyck, then Logan, then Benmore then back to Edinburgh. It's the sort of saddo self-indulgent holiday I would do if I didn't have a family who sigh every time I wander off to look at a tree in a park.

Every day's a school day, and I dread the day that isn't. Can you imagine going to bed without having realised, learnt or worked something out that day? I was up at 5am! Learning to play Jerusalem Ridge on the mandolin, but that kind of counts as studying. Anyway, when I moved from surveying to trees and had to study formally again it was hard, very hard. I don't think I could go through what you're doing. Not at my age.... If I go to see Herr Mattheck it will be for entertainment value, won't take a single note.

If you ever have to work in one, you'll never forget it. Standard quick check for me between Norway ad Sitka Spruce is to cup the end of a branch in the hand and start to squeeze slowly. If it's not unbearable, it's not Sitka. Norway can be a bit sore but it's a poofter compared to Sitka.

Don't use ordinary spikes on a monkey puzzle. They will bleed and bleed and bleed, leaving white resin running down the stem and solidifying there for years. Please don't do it. Use a ladder. The vascular cambium in mature mionkey puzzles is a good inch or more below te surface. The cork cambium is right on the surface and very easy to damage.

There's soooo many pines, but in scotland probably 80% will be sylvestris, the rest will be nigra, contorta and just the occasional other. I found a parviflora at Smeaton, took me forever to pin it down. Last week came across 3 heldrichii, took me 15 minutes to get comfortable with the indentification. A few pines have needles in groups of 3 or 5. They're easy because that rapidly narrows it down. For 3 think perhaps rigida, for 5 think wallichiana or strobus. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the 3 and 5 needled pines have 2 vascular bundles per needle, which if you've got a really good hand lens is a nice identifying feature. I think I might have put a thin section photo of a single vascular bundle needle in the 'trees under the microscope' thread her on Arbtalk. Next time I spot a wallichiana I'l nick a few needles and see if I can section them.

h to be a student... not!

It looks very much like Pinus sylvestris to me. The orange bark is a good indicator and could only realy be P. sylvestris or P. parvifolia. The latter has needles that are markedly longer. What is it that's making you think it might not be P. sylvestris?

The bit that says Spiky: Very is a pretty good default for Picea sitchensis

Tried to fill the survey in but some of the questions were unanswerable so I baled out. Sort it out and I'll have another go.

I think we're getting mixed up in what's meant by reference. If you want to know what the BS says about something for a one-off reason, go tot eh library. Look at the screen. Write it down if you want. That is what libraries are for, reference. No breach of copyright. But if you copy it and take it home, then that's breach of copyright. I use the Glasgow library now and again. I can look at screeds of stuff, pick out and note down the one or two sentences that I need and go home. I don't need to buy a whole document for 2 sentences. If there's an illustration I need the library will copy it for me. I don't eed or want whole documents cluttering my shelves and my hard drive unless I am gouing to be using them frequently. And if I am using them frequently they will be earning me money so I don't mind buying them. Didn't one of the consultancies down south produce a free or much cheaper abridged version of te BS? Or am I imagining that? BY the way, can anyone think of a better way for BS to finance its functions? I have long wondered about this but can't think of a solution.

It has now been withdrawn.

The business section of public libraries may have the fcility to print off the odd page here nad there. For example, Glasgow City has a free-to-view account for the British Standards and will allow a small % of any document to be printed off (10p a copy) there. So you could legitimately nab the categories table, for example.

Roll it up and pop an elastic band round it.