David Humphries

The old tri-wire bracing? that became loose when weight was taken off the road side pole, prior to the tethers being installed. .

To aid stability (due to the Meripilus in the roots) & prolong the verticle life span of this habitat tree, the roadside pole has had weight reduced further and the remaining poles have been tethered to adjacent maiden beeches. .

Veteran lapsed beech pollard, approximately 450 years old, significant root decay from Meripilus giganteus The tree, due to its age, is host to a myriad of different species, one of which is an incredibly rare lichen which is red data listed. It has been the subject of a previous (wire) bracing to stabilise the three remaining poles some 10+ years ago. The target is an internal tarmac road which is now used by pedestrians only. The ongoing management prior to the assessment for stability was a proccess of three staged reductions to aid retrenchment of the canopy at roughly 5 year intervals. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocPi9LV7FkI]Bracing Beech Pollard - YouTube[/ame] .

Steve, I would like to put my years subscription of Arb Climber back up for auction. Before you send AC the list of winners of the ten subscriptions, let me put a thread up to raise some more cash for the CT first, I'll let you know who wins the auction. cheers David

Very interesting Sean, I'll give it a good read later. Don't recall any 'Arborglyphs' on the old Basque pollards when we were over there studying them I'll have a trawl back over the images to see if I missed anything. Good find mate .

just about to go........ .

Try and get involved with which ever is your local Tree Officer Association. My guess would be that the MTOA is perhaps your closest, having an office in the West midlands (perhaps there is one in Wales, but I don't know) mtoa | The Municipal Tree Officers Web Site They will I'm sure, hold seminars and training for their membership much like the London Tree Officers Association which is my local one. .

There's one in June in Bristol Professional Tree Inspection 3 Day Course ? Training .

The PTI would be a good start. Professional Tree Inspection 3 Day Course ? Training & then perhaps a level 4 course like..... http://abcawards.co.uk/landbased-and-environmental/arboriculture/level-4-diploma-in-arboriculture/1466/ I did the above with the Arboricultural Association & Tree Life respectively, but there are other training providers .

Logged in via the lap top ok.

For sure. Look at these poor souls at the 1914 cup final, none of your comfy plastic seats and corporate hospitality like today Check out the wannabe arbs in the tree in the background .

Interesting .

Says I need adobe flash player I'm on IPad .

Yep, could be .

Agreed No modern context shot here, but I came across this great image earlier of street hawkers selling wood, taking advantage of a coal porters strike in 1914

Any piece of woodland that has had continuous tree cover since at least 1600 .

Interesting, but not as strange as it would seem. A few species are particularly known for fruiting during the winter months. Flammulina being the most renowned. The coastal marine (ecotone) belt has its own specific species, but often coastal woodland has species (particularly mycorrhizal) that will associate on roots of pines and beech etc.... that have their roots out in the sand dunes and shingle. Noted Macrolepiota, Amanita, Russula and others, whilst walking the Norfolk coast last autumn. No idea which species your shots are on the drift wood. .

After all this time, someone can now enlighten me with the facts of laboratory mycology rather than me rely on a boiling cauldron, wings of bat and eye of newt Nice one Nick, good addition .

Ancient woodland is all about the 'time' it takes for the myriad of species within it to develop into the community. Planting no matter how many trees can not add the time element in to the equation. The ministers stance is so short sighted which sadly mirrors our general societal view of the world today. .

I am constantly amazed at the variation we see in the morphological appearance of fungal species. An interesting example is Laetiporus Here in the UK it's listed as one species (L. sulphureus) but it has at least six species in the US. How many forms of this do we see out there here, on the same host let alone the variety on different hosts. Laetiporus cincinnatus, the white-pored chicken of the woods, Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for July 2001 I'm aware of some work going on that's looking at this here in the UK. As for Mr Forbes-Lairds monograph, I have no reason to doubt his theory and have it in mind often when making decisions on a number of hosts with Meripilus that I've been watching/managing with the association for many years now. http://www.flac.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Monograph-on-Meripilus-giganteus.pdf Disappointingly, there appears to be no scientific research being carried out since/currently (that I'm aware of) to prove the hypothesis one way or the other. It's a shame that the 'National Meripilus Network' died on its feet before it really got going. .

A good network of food banks out there. This is an example..... The Trussell Trust | Foodbank Projects .

on closer inspection of the failed roots, it was interesting to note that only some of the major laterals were heavily decayed by white rot. The roots on the left hand side of the root plate were largely un-decayed and fractured due to the force loaded on to them via the tree going over, where as the roots on the right hand side of the root plate had evidence of almost total lignin decay. .

In full leaf it survived the strong gusts of the St Judes storm in October (whilst this woodland lost a substantial number of sizeable trees) but it was toppled in the high winds and rain of last week. .

Here's a beech with a Meripilus association that goes back to 1999 and probably beyond. It's an unreduced tree in woodland (though close to the edge) surrounded by lapsed hornbeam coppice and similar sized maiden oaks. The first shots of the fruiting bodies were taken in 1999 and also 2004 by a colleague. The last two shots were from the autumn period of 2008. It was subjected to an air spade investigation a few years ago, which at the time showed no significant white rot on the major lateral roots. Since the airspading the fruiting bodies have been conspicuous by their absence up until the autumn last. .

interesting to see how the four lines of trees have disappeared over time leaving two partial lines that have been randomly re-planted up after various storms etc.... .