David Humphries

1 hour ago, Gary Prentice said:

Now I wonder who the American Arb was? 

 

Having lived in Enfield, Stansted and Cambridge, I don't envy your commute nor the travelling around London.

Fortunately I don't do the commute every day Gary.

My jobs good, but it's not that good 

Most of my daily movement is around the same few miles in north London, so not so bad, and I've battled a location switch a few times over the years and managed to retain my yard at a location that's pretty much in the opposite direction to the main flow of commuter traffic each morning and afternoon.

The American might have been a number of people, arb-talking is a very international pass time these days, but yeah, the 'girdling' reference is a fairly big give away, huh 

30 minutes ago, josharb87 said:

Really interesting project David!

 

Must be a real chore visiting those sites 

 

where pollards left out of regular cutting succumb to dysfunction, decline and fungal colonisation  does this mean that regularly pollarded trees are less susceptible to fungal colonisation?

It's a hard slog Josh, but someone had to step up and volunteer

Higher vitality trees (ones with lots of dense photosynthetic material) which are subjected to smaller sized cuts, (because the regrowth is younger and less size in diameter) can occlude and compartmentalise the wounds more effectively than lower vitality trees with large wounds. This will hinder fungal colonising species with wound entrance strategies (not including the dormant endophytic species though) 

The older lapsed pollards (with large diameter wood volume and tall old-growth poles) can end up having large tear outs which open large wounds which get colonised more readily.

32 minutes ago, sean said:

Great article

Cheers Sean, appreciated.

Would be good to see you put a blog together to update on your recovery and how you adapted to it and all the other stuff you've been up to.  

38 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Stunning pictures David . Even the one of you !

Ta, that's a rather wistful, younger looking me 

Photographer said, pretend to look at something magical occuring up in the canopy.........I was thinking, I'm gonna look like a right pratt Ha !

Nicely put together post Tom, like your writing style.

On 8/15/2017 at 09:24, surveyor said:

Thanks for sharing.  Were so many trees cut this way historically for livestock feed?  (reading from your previous post)

Livestock winter fodder (like these recently cut ash), charcoal, firewood and wood material for building & making things.