daltontrees

I am following this thread with an almost religious regularity, but I am dismayed by talk of upregulation. Why, because I don't know what it means. If it's in a dictionary at all, I suspect it's still in nappies (or more likely, diapers). Did the sources use the word? I'm old-fashioned about facts, and refuse to take them in unless they are unassailably true, but if I can't understand the lingo what chance have I? I shall slink back to the 20th century, clutching a printed dictionary with whitened and anxious knuckles.

Out on survey today I came across quite a few specimen pears that looked to be a bit like your pics. Callery Pear Pyrus calleryana. Dont' know why I'm bothering though...

I/m curious. How did you identify it?

I borrowed this nifty graph off the 'net, It is usefyul to appreciate that since photosynthesis uses CO2 and respiration produces it, and since it is unthinkable that a leaf wouldn't recycle CO2 wherever possible within the spingy mesophyll layer, what matters is the net CO2 demand at any time. Twice a day they might balance out to a net zero demand. I wonder if plants in the arctic circle that experience 24 hour daylight even bother to pump it.

That's not going to get any better. Couldn't really tell what was beneath the limbs, if there's nothing going to fall off and hit the oil tank then it could be left. Looks generally like valuable habitat, so it could be stripped to a pole and left. It's got bat roost written all over it, unless that cavity is open at the top.

The ground under the leylandii might be acidified and a bit toxic, the beech might struggle for various reasons. Competition for light, water, nutrients, space, rooting.

I've just been doing that out the back, the force of the round coming down on the maul is incredibly powerful. I used to use grenades but only do now on site to half monstrous rounds for carrying out.

I'm going to spell it out. A survey is needed. You seem to know why. You haven't told us why. You want to know if you should do it. Comparing it with CS39 is of no relevance whatsoever. No-one can tell you if you are competent to do a survey with an undefined specification and competence level.

Beautifully put, I may adopt that as a strap-line. And I agree with the sentiment.

So far, all speculation. I'm going to be blunt as an indirect act of help. If you don't know why the survey is needed and the extent of the detail needed, you shouldn't do it. No specification, no way.

What do you mean by 'the ecological surveys'? Isn't there a spec for these somewhere which defines the level of competence of the surveyor? What's the purpose of the surveys?

Not even that. Some fungi fruit on bare wood. I expect anyone knowing why panic fruiting is not an entirely appropriate term will also know not to draw any conclusion from it. As such, I see harmless currency in the use of the term.

I agree. The term 'panic-fruiting', while I don't much like it myself, is fine in the right context. But it's not much more anthrpopmorphic than the concenpt of fungi having strategies, which they don't. They perhaps have 'modes' of colonisation, but they don't plan it out. The Oxford companion to animal behaviour (1987), albeit referreing to animals rather than fungi, advised that "one is well advised to study the behaviour rather than attempting to get at any underlying emotion". The lack of a better term that is as acccessible to the casually interested person suggests 'panic fruiting' will continue in use, and if it opens up lines of enquiry the budding (or should that be fruiting?) mycologist will be rewarded endlessly by discovering more and more complexities of fungi that we don't yet fully understand.

Here's a pico-factoid ona slow-fact day for anyone like me that didn't know what 'ruderal' means. 'The word ruderal comes from the Latin rudus rubble.' (Wikipedia - 5 minutes ago). Ruderal species are the first to colonise disturbed land. It seems to have a slightly wider ecological meaning such as "ability to thrive where there is disturbance through partial or total destruction of plant biomass" (Grime, Hodgson & Hunt, 1988).

Brings back to me an incident of my own a couple of years ago, I spotted a couple of scrotes clearing my car out at 2am. I had been working my proverbials off for weeks not bringing in quite enough to pay the bills and when I saw these wee batons I almost flipped, there they were helping themselves while I was tring to get enough sleep to get up the next day for an honest, tax-paying days toil. So what happened? One version (the official one) is that I persuaded them to leave, and the other one is that they narrowly escaped my base instincts to take out my frustrations on them. Blades were produced (by them), one of them was on hardcore drugs. It could have gone any way at all. And then I got rebuked by the police for having a baseball bat on me. "Baseball bat?", said I, "it's my walking stick". "That's better" said PC Goodguy. Here's the problem. Yopu pay taxes and you walk the right side of the line. Others don't. The law is on your side till you take the law into your own hands. But you only do that when the law lets you down. It's almost wild west round here sometimes, the police are so thin on the ground. If the state doesn't keep it's side of the deal I can see why scrotes will increasingly have unfortunate accidents in dark yards. The walking stick is on ice, but I'd warrant the animal in most of us is not far from thawing out at very short notice. Sorry guys, my therapist made me say all this. Or maybe I'm just mental. Go ahead punks...

A slighty odd situation. Regulation 15 makes the regulations for TPOs and CAs the same. Regulation 14 says "Nothing in regulation 13 shall prevent— "© the cutting down, uprooting, topping or lopping of a tree, to the extent that such works are urgently necessary to remove an immediate risk of serious harm, or to such other extent as agreed in writing by the authority prior to the works being undertaken; "(2) Where paragraphs (1)(a)(i) [dead] or (1)© apply, notice in writing of the proposed activities shall be given to the authority— (a) in the case of works urgently necessary to remove an immediate risk of serious harm, as soon as practicable after the works become necessary; and (b) in any other case at least five working days prior to the date on which the works are to be commenced." Stricti ly speaking, the Council may have agreed to the works (i.e. removal) and their condition is immaterial. I agree that the expression 'dangerous' is not quite the same as 'an immediate risk of serious harm' and if so the Regulations are clear that a 5 day notice must be put in, even though the Council has already agreed to removal. Or ask teh client to get the consultant to advise. It's got to be safer than going on the basis of advice on Arbtalk.

Make sure you are using Lumbricus terrestris, the compost worms only eat decaying vegetation but Lumbricus eats soil. They reproduce every 3 months, a handful every few square metres is all you need. It's a start, but sounds like decompaction and organic matter will be needed too. Possibly overseeding with clover for a season then turn it in when prepping the site, the nitrates and porosity are really beneficial.

I'd say holly, complete with leaf miner. Could be Highclere Holly Ilex x altaclarensis

Without reading all the papers cited in this fact of the day, I am tempted to suggest that there is a good reason to fertilise with mulch or manure that hasn't been mentioned. I am speaking now from direct and real experience of a current situation. The improvement of soil by adding organic material is beneficial for worms. They feed on this material and their daily vertical travel through soil is immeasurably beneficial for most plants including trees. Drainage, gas exchange and porosity for root development a re a few of the direct immediate benefits. The creation of a good humic content is less direct but very valuable. Within a year or two the tree can through leaf shedding and natural mulching and the normal recycling of short-term rootlet develop a steady equilibrium of worms and worm food, but unless the soil used for backfilling already contains worms and enough organic material to sustain them for a couple of years then the tree will lose all the benefits of wormy soil. So it's nothing to do with fertilising to feed the tree, it's to do with feeding the things that help the tree until it settles in. Soil without happy worms is almost dead, and that's not good for trees in it. Good point about fertilising late in the season. I'm not a fan of chemical fertilisers any time of year unless the environs of the tree are cheating it of recycling its own nitrates. In particular removing fallen leaves. The ideal seems to be to fertilise at the very time when last-year's leaf falll will have degraded and gone into the soil for uptake in early spring.

My Eucryphia x nymanensis flowered profucely for the first time this year, not quite a tree yet but putting on 1/2m every year.

Jon, that's my understanding too, the LA does not warrant the safety of roadside trees, But I think care is needed. If the Council notice says, 'if you don't make it safe within 14 days, we will' then the owner is off the hook and quire trgiuhtly because he has been given the option to do it or be billed when the Council does it and by what might be termed in law as acquiescence and taciturnity the onner is entitled to assume the matter is in the hands of the LA. It could certainly form the basis for a fairly robust negligence claim. If the notice says '...we can and may', that's a different matter.

I'd say Ganoderma sp. defiitely, and Ganoderma applanatum probably

David, excuse my clumsy delivery style, Gary is so much more diplomatic. But I will blunder on as I usually do, please don't be put off keeping up the debate. Beech sprouts from wide stumps, but it (in my purely direct experience) doesn't last and so it doesn't regenerate into a viable tree. A bud popping out from behind the bark rather than through it might not have a complete bark cambium connection to the stool. I am working aeay form home these days and don't have access to my library or to the few local examples on beech stumps I know of, so I can't really research my amateur theory just now. Maybe someday soon...

Call that regeneration? I don't see the Willow and Lime Coppice Marketing Board losing much sleep tonight? OK so I made a bit of a bold statement but it's generally true. As I wrote it I recalled a few isolated examples of regeneration non Beech and that in my memory the shoots had formed inside the bark rather than through it. That seems to be what happened in your first pics. I just saw a monkey puzzle stump about an hour ago regenrating from buds inside the bark. I'll try and get a picture but it will be a couple, of days before I pass it again. And if I am right, it asks interesting questions of how the new cambium of the shoots connect in the longer term to the stump cambium.

I speculated recently about this on UKTC, in short (most) conifers produce adventitious buds but these are reabsorbed within a few months unless used byt the tree. Beeck bark, for all that it is smooth and one might be tempted to think it is thin, is impenetrable by dormant buds. Cut a Beech back to any diameter more than a few inches and you will get no regeneration.