daltontrees

The authors of the article that Gimmer posted suggest that pruning has no long term effect on soil moisture depletion because the roots remasin unaffected by pruning. But surely if you reduce the crown repeatedly and over a long period there will be a net depletion of nutrients to the roots and they will not be able to (or need to) maintain themselves at their full extent and there will be dieback just as a crown dies back if it is deprived of water and nutrients? To say otherwise is to say that a root network once in place is indestructible. Fair enough, roots are not tested by weather, insects, mammals, fungi, bacteria (and tree surgeons) the same way as branches are so wastage will be slow but it MUST happen eventually?

Interesting article, Gimmer, thanks for making it available. There is something odd about the logic that I can't quite put my finger on. It may come to me though. Maybe being in the not-so-sunny west of Scotland makes it impossible for me to imagine Soil Moisture Deficiency.

Here's what I think may be a couple of relevant bits from the AFAG guidance a. the guidance 'does not cover exceptional situations where the risk assessemnt shows advanced or alternative felling techniques are required' b. 'It is important to remember that felling is a one-person operation' It seems that if your buddy is not working on another tree but just watching from 2 trees away he isn't really 'working'. Safest place has to be in the other 'escape route' position (3 oclock to 4.30 or 7.30 to 9 oclock). If your risk assessment could show that the risk of fatigue and leaving a tree mid-fell for any lenght of time outweighs the risk of 2 people at the butt in the escape zones surely there's no problem? Isn't that what you're saying anyway? Give the jobsworths a copy of it and they'll retreat with their posteriors covered. Otherwise it looks on paper like a fair cop...

I have aStein on my Treemotion too, the weak belt loop on it was starting to tear (again) so my wife stitched a a bit of cheapo webbing belt and buckle round it and it is pretty much indestructible now. I reckon it will save me the cost of several of these kits in the long run, Would NEVER climb without kit.

Mmmm, I think it's just the vertical vector part of the wire angle i.e. Sin30x2.5T which is 15kN. Worst case scenario, it can never be heavier than just a straight vertical lift of 2.5T. So it got to be a 2T in theory and a 3.2T Tirfor for absolute peace of mind.

Seriously, don't try and make graphite yourself by rubbing pencil on sandpaper, you will get quartz (por worse, corrundum/carborundum) particles into the graphite and if you put abrasives like that in your krab hinges etc. you will gub them verty quickly.

For what it's worth I can't settle on a preference. I have been climbing for 20 years and always fall back (no pun intended) on the prussik. The guy I climb with likes a 2 wrap prussik and I would like to use a Klemheist for general tree work but because we usually swop over mid shift and leave the loops on the ropes I use a 3 wrap prussik, he complains that the 3 is hard to unlock I complain that the 2 doesn't lock properly (and I nearly decked it once as proof). I can't be bothered with minder pulleys or else I would probably be using the VT. I am fairly addicted to my swedish strop for close-up stuff, it's so stiff that it doesn't really matter if it doesn't hug the stem. Climbing buddy uses a prussik on a short strop and can never rein it right in as a result. I ought to experiment with a really short prussik loop. Blake's hitch is an interesting suggestion that would get round the problem of the fixed length of a loop and the bulk of the 'fishermans'.