daltontrees

|I think the source of confusion is really obvious. If your rope is over a branch and down to your frictiobn hitch/device, that's a doublED rope. And of course a single rope. If you are climbing and cutting you should always have 2 separate attachments, often 2 separate ropes. That's doublE ropes. Those ropes can of course be doublED. It'd qurte right to say that it is safer to cut from double ropes than from a single rope. But when the single rope is doublED, cut either side and you are mince. There was a thread about the terminology for SRT a few months or a year ago. Personally I gave upon it because no-one seemed to care that the current terminology was ambiguous and therefore potentially dangerous. Fun video, though. I guess if dolly had had her CS38 she wouldn't have put a loop of the makeshift harness around her neck.

That helps, if ythat is thw Commission's interpreatation of the law. I would be cautious, though, the Forestryu Act says in a roundabout way that a legal right of access does not include the general right to roam under the Countryside Act

Too big for P.sylvestris, pretty extreme for P. nigra. Try P. radiata (Monterey Pine).

Sorry, I disagree for the reasons I have just posted. Common land is just one example of where the land might be public open space.

In the Forestry Act, “public open space” means land laid out as a public garden or used ... for the purpose of public recreation, or land being a disused burial ground. It looks like the land doesn't neeed to be open in the sense of having wide open spaces but open in the sense of unrestricted access. I would think for the exemption to apply, the land would need to be devoted to public recreation as its sole or main purpose, not just used for say occasional dog walking as a purpose ancillary to its main purpose or with public recreation tolerated. Indicators of purpose might be signage, lack of locked gates, byelaws, planning policies in the Local Plan and so forth. Herein therefore may lie the answer to the OP question. If the land is devoted to public recreation, no felling license is required. I hope this helps. There is one caveat. You quote - 'Felling fruit trees, or trees growing in a garden, orchard, churchyard or designated public open space (eg. under the Commons Act 1899).'. However, the Act doesn't say that. It says - 'the felling of fruit trees or trees standing or growing on land comprised in an orchard, garden, churchyard or public open space'. Either yoiu have misquoted or paraphrased, or my legislation reference is out of date. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I helped out on the Glasgow version of this. Interesting work and a worthwhile project. Took me 3 months, 4 days a week. Gotta know your shrub idents.

If you'd just wanted to know that, maybe you should have started a poll? I was just trying to be helpful. So to answer your new questions a. I've never been asked and b. I've never been asked. Over and out.

An interesting question! The Act says tha the exemption (i.e. under 5 cube a quarter) applies to "trees on land in [a person's] occupation or occupied by a tenant of [a person]" It would seem that the exemption applies to the person, not to the land. But by extension, the land is the land in the control of the person. The Forestry Commission website and leaflets do not seem to elaborate on this, referring only to 'your property' which merely underlines the emphasis on ownership/control rather than defined estates or holdings. All a bit hopeless if you own a series of scattered plantations.

On the wider debate, if I may? My recollection form college is that some work practices have to be done by someone competent and some have to be done by someone who has demonstrated competence. The tickets do the latter. Training (supplemented by experience) does the former. Using a chainsaw carries mandatory demonstration of competence. Most other tree work carries mandatory competence. I hope this makes sense, it seems to explain why the guidance appears to be contradictory. To find a a strict answer would require tracking through the Health & Safety Act then a couple or more of the Regulations particularly PUWER and Management of Health & Safety, then through teh industry best practice docs and LANTRA training requirements. For me, I consider that I have demonstrated competence in chainsaw and crosas cutting and a few other things and am competent to sever individual and multiple windthrow through training and experience and extension of usual sound apporoach to assessment of risks.

I didn't realise we were restricted to teh original questions, and I can never resist a ramble... I don't hold CS35, and I only do windthrow for private clients who trust me completely. In my limited experience, clients generally are oblivious to the subtleties of what tickets do what, and if they see that you have CS30/31 they reckon you are allowed to use a chainsaw and are allowed to fell trees and that's enough for them. If they seer that you have CS38 they reckon you are allowed to climb and don't think to ask for CS39. Even if they do, they don't ask for CS40 or 41.

Sorry to disagree, but although you have taken this from Logrod's posting I don't think you can or even should conclude this. Getting the ticket demonstrates competence, and that's what the law demands. What you do with the ticket after that is usually in my experience a matter of commercial pressure and individual attitude. Old hads either get better through experience or worse through complacence. I don't see that it is the client's or the industry's place to separate the two. I recently described the taming of multiple windthrow to one of the guys as the 'game of champions', nothing is more complex, rarely are the forces more complex and 3 dimensional and their release more explosive. We spent 2 hours on one rootplate one day (it had 9 trees on it), it was the most exhausting and exhilarating and satisfying game of Kerponk ever. £500 seems a small price to pay to stay alive?

There's a really lovely slide for sale on ebay just now ANTIQUE MICROSCOPE SLIDE. FOSSIL WOOD. LOUGH NEAGH, IRELAND. CUPRESSINOXYLON | eBay it's a thin section of a fossil tree from northern ireland. It has still got much of the cell and ring structure visible, but the original organic material has been replaced with minerals. Some of the photographs on ebay have been taken in cross polarised light (see my earlier postings about this), with resultant interference colours.

It might not be a pendula form, it might just be the weight of ice that's causing it to hang like that.

I'll have a look at my copy of Shigo. Living systems may benefit from rest, but it is a period during which energy is expended but not replaced and exposure to disease is high but defences are low. I just wonder if the benefits of rest for trees outweighs the drawbacks?

An ordinary razor will flex during the cut and will either ride over the sample or will submarine into the wax and give you an overly thick slice. I would sharpen the cuthroat razor every 10 cuts or so. On a very fine grained grindstone in oil.

I had picked up a Lime twig in the street and thought it would be nice to do a few sections of the buds, longways and across-ways. The pictures show the buds being laid and stood up in the softened wax, then set in a solid lump of wax. Aftyer that it is necessary to advance the microtome a few clicks then draw a (very very sharp) razor across the top of the metal block. This takes a thin slice of wax and sample off. The wax usually falls away and the sample can be floated onto a new glass slide for viewing.

Emmm... here's the spoon. bit

OK the makeshift microtome is made, but first I am going to put up some pictures of a real microtome. The one I have is about as basic as they come, real lab ones can cost £thousands. This one can be clamped onto a table edge. It is basically a block of metal with a smooth top surfaces and a piston up the middle thaty can be advanced by means of the gnarled screw at the bottom. One twist on the screw produces a click and advances the piston a tiny amount, 10 microns. A micron is 1/1000 of a millimetre. A typical biological sample will be thin-sectioned after about 5 clicks, i.e. 50 microns which is about 0.05mm. The sample is put in the top and the space around it is filled slowly with molten parrafin wax. The pictures show the start of the process for a piece of Poinsetta leaf. I am warming the wax part of a tealight candle on a spoon over the gas cooker.

Unbelievably lucky! They should be buying lottery tickets...

That's the way I've always done it, but tip of bar on a 2 -3 " branch so you can really push down on the gullets. Keeps the chain out of the dirt too.

Nice illustration! In practice using standard heras panels means the minimum polygon side is 3.5m but they can be overlapped to give straight sections of anything from 3.8m upwards. Standard clips can't be used, but standard tying wire can. I have found guys on site less inclined to remove panels if it nmeans cutting tying wire or having to move a couple of panels.

I'd go along with this, an a little further. There are people who come on to Arbtalk and ask for advice or tree idents or clarifications of regulations etc. then get lots of useful responses and don't even bother to acknowledge the help they have received. If they even took the trouble to ask nicely one would feel more inclined to pitch in. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it doesn't feel that old-fashioned when I am trying to explain to my 4 year old daughter that being polite makes people like you better and gets you things too and is just plain nice. I have got to the point on Arbtalk where (and I didn't realise it until this thread was started) I make a mental note of those who don't acknowledge assistance or comments or don't ask 'nicely', and I just don't pitch in on their threads any more. So how about a 'thank' function for those who haven't got 10 seconds to acknowledge the help they have received? This 'like' culture that seems to be obligatory in every aspect of social media seems lazy and meaningless by comparison, and I would hate to see a point where no-one wants to contradict a poster's opinion because everyone already likes it. If you like it, it's not hard to say so, and why. The threads that do this are the more enjoyable threads. Do we want to see rapport reduced to counting the number of 'likes'?

I agree with the point made about volume versus surface area. But I think it is probably a bit of both. But sdince we aren't party to the basis on which the RPA formula was arrived at by BS, we don't know what emphasis has been put on which aspect of root function. For structural roots, the RPA is likely to be more than adequate, and both depth ansd spread are significant factors, depending on species. For water gathering, surface area seems the obvious important factor unless soil depth, texture and structure and topography allow for collection in a dip. For nutrient gathering volume is important but simce many trees are reabsorbing nutrients every year from decayed leaf litter very close to the surface, surface area is also important. For gas exchange, surface area must be by far the most important factor. And as for competition from other trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants? Deviation from a circle and from the 12 x DBH rule should probably be the norm. Someone I work with often expresses RPAs as polygonal CEZs on the basis that things like heras fencing comes in straight lines. My rule is, there is no rule.

Different sort of ash from volcanoes, it is fine rock mineral particles with a very high surface area to volume ration that give out useful elements like soduim, potassium, magnesium, iron etc. readily. Wood ash is fairly caustic, the elements usually being in a form that is ready to react with just about anything. They can be toxic to bacteria, worms, insects and can create pH levels that are phytotoxic (i.e. kill plants). Use sparingly. I empty my stove into a bucket and every now and then sieve it and chuck out the lumps. The fine powder can be dusted on the soil surface just before rain is expected. I probably use about 1 kg per m2 a year.

Defo F.v, just saw a load today running rampant up the stem of a Lime.