daltontrees

Growing Amelanchier Lee Reich lreich at hvc.rr.com Fri Nov 6 14:44:27 EST 2009 "Grafting has not been a very satisfactory method of juneberry propagation. Grafts often take on rootstocks of other genera, such as mountain ash, hawthorn, and other members of the rose family, but the grafted plants sometimes stop growing. Stocks generally used have included Cotoneaster acutifolius, C. bullatus, Sorbus intermedia, and S. aucuparia. Amelanchier alnifolia is apparently the juneberry most compatible with other genera. Plant juneberries grafted onto other genera low enough in the ground to allow the juneberry scion to root. The rootstock, in this case, acts as a temporary nurse root, but may have the unfortunate habit of continually sending up sprouts. Crataegus arnoldiana as a juneberry rootstock reputedly shuns this bad habit. "Interestingly, one Amelanchier species is not always graft compatible with another. When grafting a juneberry scion onto juneberry roots, choose a nonsuckering clone for roots or you will constantly be finding shoots thrown up from the rootstock. "Lee Reich, PhD"

A good wqy to think of the decision is assessing separately how likely the tree is to fail, how likely something or something will be there directly beneat in nthe conditions under which it would fail, and how serious the harm or damage would be. So the VTA part is only the first of three factors. The Ganoderma could co-exist with an Oak for decades. If ther is good vitality, no evidence of rootplate movement, there is evidence of adaptive growth I'd saay there is nonly a slightly elevated likelihood of failure compared with a normal oak of the same size. How serious would the harm be? Wold the whole tree snapo at the base? Probably not, it's rare and the tree would have to be really really and obviously goosed. Would ti shed a branch instead? Unlikely if it is of good vigour. What's it going to land on? Shrubs in an unused area of a garden? All in all, it looks likie a low risk. I daresay in a PTI assessment you'd be jsstified in recommending it be left alone ansd re-assessed in 2 or 3 years. As others have said, state the evidence and relate the decision to it and you can't be criticised if it is a reasonable decision. There's no right answer, although you'll get failed for arriving at a wrong one and/or not explaining why or not basing it on what you have recorded about the tree and the situation.

Spruce Pirate is in Scotland, so the advice about multistemmed treees doesn't apply. At least I can't see any scottish equivalent to the english Reg 15(2)(a).

The legislation says 1.5m. "Above the natural ground level" in England, "above ground level" in Scotland.

I don't follow, the leaves are from the rootstock the way it looks. They look Amelanchier-like. This has occasionally been grafted successfully onto Sorbus, but I don't know about the other way round. Amelanchier buds are Beech-like.

Geo TX virtually idestructible, great! With the right software. GPSs don't draw maps. And Geos or really most things that would be good for trees wouldn't be muchg use for telling you to turn left at the next junction.

Easy, cut it down and count the rings!

I have long thought that, and I am sure I don't need to tell you all the positive benefits that would arise. I can't start a campaign from up here, we have our own difficulties with politicians who are largely clueless and a local authority culture that as far as I can tell has little conviction about its protection of trees.

True, but it would take a change in primary legislation to make non-replanting an offence. Can't see that happening any time soon.

I see that in Scotland the situation is slightly different in that the Council can also recover "such proportion of their administrative expenses as seems to them to be appropriate". This should encourage the offender to replant, as it will almost certainly be cheaper.

THe Council can enter the land, plant the replacement tree and recover the cst, thogh, can't it? Not quite a disincentive to not replant, but at least the replanting can be assured, which is the main thing.

A simultaneously interesting yet tiresome debate. Is there not the development potential for 3 large villas at stake, otherwise the case would have been dropped? In the High Court counsel for the developer "accepted that there is not a rigid distinction between a seedling and a sapling. They form part of the continuing development of a specimen. Any distinction between the two would be a matter of degree and judgment." And it was shown that the developer had not challenged the lumping together of seedlings/saplings, or at least the Inspector accepted that the distinction between seedlings and saplings had not hitherto been disputed by the developer and that he had no need to examine it. But right at the end of the spectrum the Council had also tagged on "or other potential trees". Does this mean that because they only have potential to become trees they couldn't have been at the time trees per se? And if so does the context suggest that the seedlings/saplings were (and it would seem a highly retrospective argument that might be debarred) also therefore not trees at the time? Oh to be a lawyer, not to enjoy any greater understanding of all this but to anticipate substantial fees for kicking a dictionary around a courtroom for a few days and to be paid regardless of the outcome!

According to Effects of ring-porous and diffuse-porous stem wood anatomy on the hydraulic parameters used in a water flow and storage model KATHY STEPPE and RAOUL LEMEUR (2006) - " we analyzed the stem wood anatomy of the beech [F. sylvatica] and oak [Q. robur] trees. Calculation of stem specific hydraulic conductivity of beech and oak ... confirmed the differences in [hydraulic resistance] predicted by [a recently developed water flow and storage model]. "The contributions of different vessel diameter classes to the total hydraulic conductivity of the xylem were calculated. As expected, the few big vessels contributed much more to total conductivity than the many small vessels. Compared with beech, the larger vessels of oak resulted in a higher hydraulic conductivity (10.66 versus 4.90 kg m–1 s–1 MPa–1). The calculated ratio of [hydraulic conductivity] of oak to beech was 2, confirming the [hydraulic resistance] ratio obtained by model calibration." Thus ring porous trees might, if this model and ratio was found to hold true for other tree species, have about twice the vessel area of diffuse porous. So why wouldn't all trees do this, and why haven't the less conductive trees been wiped out by evolutionary pressures? I think the cavitation idea is a useful way to look at it but there's also a clue in the word 'diffuse'. Diffuse porous trees are lmost certailnly compensating for lower vessel size by using more rings. It is well known that ring porous trees are very dependent on the newly created wood of the spring period to conduct the vast quantities of water that they need for their mode of existence, and do not rely on the last year's (and older) vessels to a great extent. I suppose I am just speculating that in support of the 'fact' you have presented there may not only be good reasons why the ring porous model does not work in freeze-prone environments but there is a good reason why the diffuse porous model does. Narrower but more deeply distributed vessels may make up the same conductivity as a few superficial but large ring porous vessels, and there may also be an insulation factor for the deeper vessels. It seems inevitable that the insulating properties of corkier bark will be a factor too for bigger trees, although the pioneers like birch and alder are diffuse porous but have famously thin bark.

Nicely said, I can only hope that the IS and everyone that is thinking of aligning themselves with IS was watching.

Problem is, a lot of systems are fixed price whether you have 100 trees or as some of my clients have, 50,000 trees recorded. The most flexible (i.e. it'll do a lot especially archives of past work, but you basically have to tell it what data you want to record and what not) seems to be Ezytreev but possibly not worth it for only 1500 trees. Currently I am using PGIS and Excel, with occasional AutoCAD or Paint mapping, and export of grid ref to any .dxf OR .dwg complatible mapping system that clients have. There are loads of asset management software packages out there, it doesn't have to be atree one you use. So many of them have easy links to photos and asset numbers (tags) and works histories. I'd give Ezytreev a call if I was you, they've recently adapted for Android and soem cleitns are uaing it on smartphones. Works on Juno/Geo if you want something indestructible in the field with proper (i.e. not just smartphone) GPS capability.

he best course of action would depend ona few things. Can you say 1. What etc means, i.e what else have you done? 2. What is the size/lifestage/condition/species of the tree? 3. In what way is it damaging the wall? 4. Is removal the only way to resolve the problem? 5. Is the customer willing to write off the ful expense of removal? 6. Is the tree protected bya TPO or Conservation Area? Answering these might lead to a refinement of the good advice you have already had here and help someone explain why you shouldn't take some of the bad advice given (the 'fell it' brigade).

I'm going with William of Occam on this and saying someone has drilled holes in the trees. Reason could be to test starch reserves (I have done this myself with a 15mm auger drill bit, but only on trees that were condemned anyway). The shavings are of course taken away for analysis. A closer look at the holes that shows they are of uniform diameter would be allthat is needed to back up the hypothesis.

That's why I am querying the size. I wouldn't like to meet an insect capable of a cm diameter bore or even an exit hole, but I can easily see some clumsy increment boring doing this.

2cm deep or 2cm diameter?

I missed all this first time around. Being in Scotland I am aware that Wetminster has scottish MPs but has no jurdistiction over scottish policy that might affect AV trees. So I could hassle my MP to get involved but it would be pointless, unless (and hopefully) someone can tell me otherwise.

It requires a prussik loop or some other piece of rope than the climbing line. I think the challenge is to use the climbing line to tie the friction hitch to the climbing line. Easy if you have the end available, a Blake's hitch or one of several other similar knots would do. But if you don't have the end available you have to take a loop out of the climbing line and use that.

I'm sorry but I don't know what you mean anymore. What's an atc, and why would you be muntered off on a sports climb? You'll need to describe trhe situation better. As I said there'sa better knot for every situation and the Fairmile might be useless or worse for the situation you encountered.

Maybe Stereum again? One could be hirsutum , the other rugosum. Neither is in the fungi directory, but you'll get loads of info on the 'net. Saprophytic.

At your own risk, I trust you understand?! On terra firma. Plus see note about securing the free end. I had a real situation like this a few years ago. A frdn peeled off the 4th pitch of a 9 pitch route on Skye, his last runner popped and he landed ona small ledge 2 foot below and about 40 above me. I didn't have a prussik loop with me and he was unconscious (his rucksack saved him death or paralysis, his helmet certainly saved his life) and I had to climb and scramble up to him using his bodyweight as an anchor. All I could think of to use was an italian hitch, which worked (just). The Fairmond would have been perfect. A pretty improbable situation but it shows that there is usually a better knot for every situation.

I just tried it with a 10.5mm rock climbing rope and a coffee table. Works surprisingly well as a shunt, but only if you pull the free end really hard because when loaded the whole thing bungs up and locks off in a spectacularly effective way that needs to be unset with every pull. The other feature is that the free end has to be loaded somehow, and I managed this easily by marlin hitching it to the krab. If photo is required let me know. Easy easy to tie on living room carpet, could be a real faff on a crag in an emergency with cold hands.