daltontrees

Basking in reflected glory, that's me. Carpe diem.

Pedunculate oak Quercus robur

That's as I remember it, the label is only to avoid ambiguity with other bits of similar kit and/or refer to the releant paperwork.

There should always be an objective for management, even if it's vague. But it can be quite a complicated business when one sits down to write it out (e.g. formal woodland management plan). Increasingly public or quasi-public woodland is managed to retain biodiverse habitats including (especially) deadwood. Unfortunately the public want the right to be there and it's not long before someone's complaining about risk and then habitat-rich wood gets removed. I have seen the public worried by coronet cuts because they think healthy trees have broken. And the usual whingers when you are in there stripping out invasives and non-natives to try and recreate native habitat. The formalising of a Woodland Management Plan can be a very useful provess because it forces the ladnowner and the adviser to weigh up competing objectives and make the tough decisions. If it does nothing else it forces a good proper look at what's there. And what's not. And what shouldn't be. And what should be. And how to change it. Generally the public love to rant without any understanding but equally they (mostly) appreciate understanding eradication and veteranisation if it's part of a plan. If they still complain, they're the problem and it's as well to ignore them until you find them camped in a tree.

Oh boy! 'Moderate' is one of the risk categories in TRAQ, but calling it imprudent is as you say somewhat condescending. There's the risk of a word based system though, it depends on the individual's understanding of words. QTRA only gives 3 possible outputs, acceptable, tolerable and unacceptable. These terms are derived from the HSE, and have quantified meanings but more importantly they are likely to be admissible in court as the risk bands within which (Acceptable) no action is required (Tolerable) the risk should be reduced to as low as reasonably practicable or (Unacceptable) duty holder must do something about it. It's all about duty of care and negligence, and I find these pretty persuasive. Rightly or wrongly I have come to equate these terms with TPO application outcomes. Acceptable - no basis for approving the works. Tolerable - basis but Council can refuse if it takes responsibility for compensation if the harm or damage materialises. Unacceptable - don't even apply, use the statutory exemption. Go fog-free in 23!

No worries, I just wanted to be clear about 'subjective' which means 'based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes or opinions' and is the very antithesis of professionalism. It does tend to get used to mean 'cannot be proven by direct observation or measurement', that's where professionalism steps in to make reasonable assumptions based on experience, that which can be seen or measured and the entire body of accepted professional knowledge. Whichever course you go on (don't know about VALID but do know about QTRA and TRAQ) it should be an eye-opener to a whole world of thinking about risk not just as the thing that might fail but the consequences of faliure. It's very refreshing and (in my experience) makes objective decisions and recommendations much easier and more consistent. I dont know you but I expect you won't regret it or the cost of training. It's like fog being blown away, suddenly everything is much clearer. "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. Donald Rumsfeld" Know what it is you know and don't know. Find out those unknowns that you can find out. Make reasonable assumptions about the ones you can't find out and let the client know about them. The law does not expect anyone to guard against unknown unknowns. Me

I am a registered QTRA user, it is a peer-reviewed system that allows the input factors for risk recommednations to be assessed separately and combined in a way that provides a defensible (legally) basis for addressing the tree owner's legal duty of care, pegged to published government risk tolerances. Because the factors are separate from the start it means there is also a defensible basis for not inspecting small or remote trees or those with no obvious defects. It does not and should not make decisions for you, and occasionally I override it. My concern with PTI (which is a pretty rigorous course and test) is that it is mainly about hazards but very light on weighing up probability of failure against other components of risk (severity of harm/damage and likelihood of target presence). I have to disagree with you, the PTI course does not use subjective judgement, quite the opposite it encourages objective judgement. Not to be confused with professional judgement about unseen parts of a tree. Objective judgements should be repeatable across a number of equally qualified professionals. Subjective judgements are worthless. I don't know about VALID, I have raised questions with its creator and he has generally declined to answer the awkward ones and usually comes back with rude, dismissive or aggressive distraction tactics, makes me wonder about the professionalism behind the system. It appears a bit mickey-mouse to me, like a QTRA-lite in app form. Its reports are horrible looking (to my eyes). But the main concern for me (I am a freelance consultant but also a part time Tree Officer) is that the system is not peer-reviewed and there is no basis to say that it has been accepted as a suitable method by a body of professionals. It does seem popular, though. It is probably wrong of your local TO to favour one system, but I respect anyone that holds out for an objective basis for risk-reduction works and I am comfortable recommending rejection of applications that do not give a basis. PTI initslef is not a risk assessment system, it is only a hazard identification and recordins system. As Tree Life says "The course is not aimed at covering report writing however, presentation of findings will be examined and advice given." You could also look at the ISA system, known as TRAQ. If QTRA is numbers, TRAQ is the same in words but loses some precision as a result. My one piece of advice is this - don't let a system make your decisions for you. Let it inform and record the basis of decisions. Be prepared to override it if professionalism requires it. Never, ever, use a system if you don't understand what it is doing inside. The buck stops with you, not with the system.

A lot of what I am seeing is typical for beech. No-one on here can give you the information or asssurance you need, based on pictures and words. If you are concerned and feel you don't know enough about trees yourself to assess it, you are under an obligation at law to get someone who does to assess it for you. And to follow their recommendations. Plus because it is TPO'd you will probably not get consent for work to it without a professional report. I would suggest you pay for advice from someone that doesn't stand to make money from unnecessary tree work. It will be cheaper in the long run. You can sue them if they get it wrong. You are paying to transfer the risk to them (and their insurers).

Approved contractor? Don't you mean registered consultant?

Yeb, krabs and a really tight line for small branches, pulley and slightly saggy line for bigger stuff. In some situations I can manage a whorl of 6 spruce branches individually slung to one pulley.

Let them rant, they must understand very little about nature and habitats. Trees are at their best when they are a bit knackered, that's when they start to be part of a woodland instead of juast being trees. The article explains it very well. Anyone that has to do habitat assessments to meet the english biodiversity net positive or the new scottish biodiversity enhancements of National Planning Framework will appreciate that the benefits of a range of ages and conditions in woodlands is the ultimate situation. The benefits can be measured and quantified. Yeah, let the townies rant at their 72" flat scren TVs after their fleeting artificial weeekend encounters with lollipop trees.

Slings are ideal fo ziplining branches but if you're chogging down a stem and zipping the sections away it's a good idea to cut a notch in the section and tighten a cinched sling into that, pretty much guarantees that the sling won't slip off.

It's all rather depressing. There's one small consolation and that is that I have noticed less midges in suburbia than used to be. Can't stand midges, they drive me nearly out off my mind. Just looking for a positive...

As I see it most cherry trees in the UK are grown for blossom. Some of them don't produce fruit even if pollinated, or just very small fruit that are not at all nice. I think that over the ages man has come to value blossom colour and density. The japanese have raised it to an art form. But some of the most highly valued blossom varieties either aren't disease resistant enough or take a really long time to develop into viable trees, so common native specimens are grown quickly and cheaply and used as root stock, onto which the ornamental scion is grafted. I've only started to look into why grafts don't always work out well, but apparently unless the root and scion are very closely related one has a competitve advantage over the other or the auxin distribution (which is what makes trees the shape they are) goes haywire or the vascular vessels size below graft is always greater than above, or... lots of other factors.

Just observation over several decades. Cherry generally has shallow roots but they really seem to bulge and break the surface below grafts.

YEs I usually takea a long section of any grafted trees tat I am involved with and which have to be felled. There's usually a bit of perturbed fibres at the graft but strong enough. The only problem I see arising is some species producing suckers right under the graft line and if trhese get left too long and then are removed then decay arises. Oddly the worst consequence of grafting I see is incompatible (C+2 or higher) grafts in Prunus avium that cause ridiculously outsized surface roots which then get mullered by mowers.

Quire right about the tests, but unfortunately those who are jittery about these things can't safely ignore the conditions if they don't meet the tests. Strictly speaking the thing to do would be to appeal the condition on the basis that it is unreasonable or unnecessary, but of course the other option which the less jittery will happily take is to ignore the conditions on the basis that they are probably unenforceable. Either way, the sort of bullshit conditions that Councils commonly insert are tiresome and all too often don't achieve any meaningful results.

That is not a valid copndition. Government guidance is clear that conditions should not be used to protect trees beyond the development period. It says that that is the job of TPOs.

I've never known graft points to be structural weaknesses (i.e. failed at graft preferentially to any other part). Not even a common entry point for decay, even if they do look messy. I'd be interested in hearing of examples where they are.

I'm pretty sure it's nothing more than a Norway Maple with a complex pruning history.

I got invited to join one a few years ago in Glasgow. I thought about it for a few minutes and realised I'd be better spending the time advertising my business and winning work based on merit. The danger can be that if the BNI members don't understand what you do then they create leads that you can't do anythingt with and woudl have killed off yourself on the first phone call. Als you end up recommending people that you actually don't know their work quality, and so it can reflect badly on you later. I didn't bother with it and never thought about it since and certainly never wondered whether I should have done it. My advice, build a reputation through good work and good customer relations and you'll never need BNI. Got enough to be do without trying to pass business to others, even if they do reciprocate. It felt dodgy to me. Not illegal, just a bit 'masonic'.

Other countries exist in the UK and the planning laws are different in each. There's no legislation that says TPO trees can't be in private gardens. Indeed, many are and it rarely sits well with householders. There are plannign application appeal precedents that have supported refusal of applications for houses on the basis that the trees are at risk from pressure for reductions and felling for light and other amenity later. TPOs don't change that, they just ramp up the conflict. Local authorities increasingly have policies that presume against development close to offsite trees, it's of dubious legality but it's for the same reason, to prevent future conflict in which the trees invariably lose.

Don't give an opinion on why the tree blew down. Don't! Curtail your instinct to be helpful, it can only end badly.

what country?

First, second and third impressions were Norway Maple.