David Humphries

Large oak burr that's expanding at pace. Would be interesting to see if the buckle above it is directly related. .

For sure. If it does fail and you happen upon it again, could you let us know as we're always interested in Kretz failures. .

Nice buttress flares and semi autonomous units developing up the trunk. Guess in a woodland it would be left to do its own thing? .

Hello Jez welcome to the site. When did you take these images? The second image looks like they show that the mushrooms have a ring on the stem, is this correct? Do you have any other images showing the stem from side on? If it is a ring (annulus) I would suspect that they 'may' be desiccated Gymnopilus junonius (spectacular rust gill) .

No, the first set of shots were from last year or possibly even 2015 It's across the horse ride in south meadow, think you went to see it. Don't remember it being a particularly strong wind that brought it down Bear claw still stands. .

Ah right, with you now. Certainly would be of interest to see and 'hear' how it sounds just under the soil level. Perenniporia seems to like the taste of ash even when there appears to be good vascular channels to the canopy. The OP's description of the ash in the first post doesn't sound like it has a positive prognosis. .

In terms of not showing the extended flare that we see in the advanced colonisation of Perenni on Ash at work? .

Use the fungal force Luke............no wedge required ! .

Agree with both points. t/R is part of the journey (explored by others) that we should all tread to add foundation to our own real life (and dysfunction) experience. .

Anything that stimulates conversation or thinking around the subject is a positive thing. As long as the Questionnaires are also sent in to Jim at the ATF, as that's the main reason for posting it here. .

Thanks Kev, yes some of the Q's do get the grey matter churning. I've had the similar thoughts around 'inclusion' and have passed on my concerns but I guess that's what preparation and sharing of things like this questionnaire are partly about. There will be undoubtedly a significant amount of planning and consultation before the training and certification goes live. Thanks for the feedback .

The Ancient Tree Forum is a main partner in VETcert - a project aiming to develop a Europe wide accreditation scheme for those working on veteran trees. The project partners are busy working on the first few work items. The training officer is currently working on the standard setting portion of the VETcert project, and needs input from a range of stakeholders in the UK. Attached is a questionnaire designed to capture the information the ATF require; it contains questions on specific issues relating to veteran trees in the UK as well as questions on the minimum knowledge and skills required for those working at a practicing level (tree surgeons) and consulting level. If you are able, please could you take the time to complete this questionnaire. Please send completed questionnaires to [email protected] by Friday 21st April. Thanks for reading . 1 VETcert IO2 Questionnaire Final-1.docx

Gear stick feels like its in neutral but gear is stuck in 1st Any ideas greatly appreciated ? .

For us also, the dialogue presents questions, and the questions make this job the more interesting .

We were driving past today so stopped and took a diameter reading. The stem is 71cm at the point of where the drills were taken. This makes the radius 35.5cm Focussing on the compression side of the tree (directly under the lean, toward south) and based on the resistograph measurements, the thickness of the remain residual wall was 4cm, this makes the t/R at this point 11% On the tension side of the tree the thickness of the remain residual wall was 10cm, which makes the t/R of that side 28% So both sides of the tree had remaining residual wall thickness below a 3rd, but not forgetting this tree having been significantly reduced in the past. I'm fairly confident this tree could have been left standing longer with further reduction, but habitat value and aesthetics would have deminished. .

Hello Nick, Thanks for the advice. Had seen that the auto retract could be changed but hadn't actually tried that, so now have that as another useful Resi tip. So where the needle was retracting after (the factory set) 5cm of reduced resistance through the very spongy resinaceum decay, we reset the auto retract to 15cm and the needle pushed through the barrier between the resinaceum and australe decay and beyond. the above graphs have been flipped around (from being read r-l to l-r) to match up with the image above them. .

Across at Burnham Beeches today undertaking some high clearance on beech maidens above old pollards. Whilst in the middle of rigging down lumps of beech we became aware of the early emergence of the red wood ants (Formica rufa) from there winter retreat, deep within their woody nests. Bit early perhaps as they were literally just stirring from slumber, couple more weeks before they'll be taking to the trees on the forage. It reminded me of coming across a nest once at Burnham in the summer that was capped with the slime mold - Fuglio septica which the ants looked to be feeding on, perhaps as a supplement to their usual aphid sugar harvest up in the trees. Short video piece on the wood ants from an episode of Countryfile that was filmed at Burnham a couple of years ago [ame] [/ame] .

Difficult to say for sure if we've noticed it before Jake, as when the needle has retracted early on previous drills (on trees we haven't felled) we've taken it as either hitting an internal crack or a foreign object like stone/nail etc. I'm not sure its a limitation of the dril but it's something we're possibly going discuss with IML. It didn't come up during an IML masterclass at Kew last year. Perhaps just an odd set of circumstances. .

As we don't run commercially the access for the public is managed but rarely blocked completely. There were 4/5 signs out and barrier tape on one of the paths. We had our new Arb who started this week taking the top down before we felled the trunk, so we're using the job as a calibration exercise for both the climber and the existing team to tune in on efficiency and communication. We didn't measure the actual t/R in relation to the trunk diameter as it was a reduced tree, but if your interested we could revisit the site on passing and get that for you? .

This particular tree has been drilled 3 times in the last 7 years Kevin. We don't really undertake the German regime of drilling each and every year. But where we do return to drill we try and look for the previous holes and set the drill 5cm or so above, below or to either side. I don't believe there's been a noticeable pattern of decay advancement due to the drilling, but then we don't often get the chance to do as much post mortem as we would like, as a lot of the trees with known decay end up standing dead as reduced habitat sticks. When these get taken down (or fail) the decay is often total and so advanced that it would be unreadable as to where previous drills have been in terms of breaching barriers and walls. But as you say, different decay potency and different host tree types combine to create a lot of variables. Something of interest today was trying to see (post mortem) if the two very visibly different decay types could be picked up on by the drill in terms of different amplitude signatures. Surprisingly, the pd400 struggled to breach the hardened barrier at the interface between the resinaceum and the australe, (even trying with each of the 5 different speed/torque settings) so the needle kept retracting where it tried to pass through those specific walled areas. This is shown on the graphs where the test hasn't gone the whole 400mm. .

Hello Jake, how long is the proverbial piece of string The tree still had good vascular connection from roots to tip and the reiterated canopy was still extending, so we had the option of further reduction. The issue with this tree though was there was no real decay in the upper trunk or scaffolds so the compressive forces of the sheer dead weight of the wood volumes over the path would have led to a basal collapse at some unknown point. The ongoing decay mapping gives us an indication that the collapse point is becoming of more concern with each passing year. Whilst we were there today dismantling the tree, perhaps somewhere in the region of 300 people passed underneath the tree, so yes, to answer your question Target value played a significant role in the removal decision. .

Red oak that has 2 separate Ganoderma species colonisations. G. resinaceum first noted about 2007 G. australe first noted 2016 We've been monitoring the decay progression since 2007, first using an Arborsonic decay detector then more recently by utilising sounding hammer and the IML Resistograph. The most recent resistographs have shown that the sound residual wall is down to about 6cm The tree had a significant lean over a well used footpath so was reduced/topped in 2010. The tree was retained rather than removed as it is a good habitat tree with cavities in the trunk and main scaffold branches. Seven years on and the decision was made to remove the tree today as the residual wall is too thin to retain. The resinaceum decay (which was actual sponge) has been highlighted in red, the remaining white rot is from the australe. The decay extended at least 3m up the trunk and below ground level The last resistograph was taken from 2.5m up the trunk. .

Hi Glen Your fruitbodies are Kretzschmaria deusta. As Chris has said they are the early anamorphic stage. This can be quite variable in colour and morphology. I suspect there will be a dysfunctional root just under the surface spanning the gap between the buttresses. This first image shows both the anamorph and teleomorph (mature) stages of the fruit bodies Few other shots for visual reference Mr Smith, although it may seem like I'm some kind of omnipresent fungoidial nerd, I do actually have a day job tha knows .

Loved it, very cool woods. My two were in their element, as was I ! http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/members-only/61211-tree-things-see-near-forest-dean-2.html .

No problems with the Meindls down here in the balmy south Dave, perhaps you should get some of these to warm your wee tootsies. Probably not so great with spikes though