David Humphries

Hello Jay, Certainly makes things far more efficient. Have asked for a crane from the end of year budget, but that's not gone down too well Yes the site is the Heath, its part of the Dam project and refurbishment of the pond swimming facilities. .

There's about 15,000 species of fungi in the UK alone, probably not enough room in the directory for all of them, but maybe the new site software will provide the opportunity Perhaps wrongly I left Turkey Tail out of the directory at the start , as it's a very commonly found species. I could add it I guess. .

Pholiota sp would be my guess with that pile of maggot infested goo .

Short window of opportunity to get these five Alders out as they were holding up construction on the site. So we utilised the crane that was already there. [ame] [/ame] .

I'll update on the Pear from the beginning of the thread later this spring when it flushes. A significant crack has developed from dysfunctional roots up toward a trunk cavity. Will probably mean further reduction. .

Not used one or seen any demos so can't help on this one I'm afraid .

Functioning better will be good. When I look for posts in old large threads from specific people the software lists numbers of posts of individual members in numerical rank but won't let you open them. It works on smaller threads. .

Anything new concerning the Search function ? .

Kenwood's still a great site to visit with fantastic trees, but it's changed a bit since then. It's a lot more formal now. .

The common and not so resplendent Trametes versicolor (Turkey tail) .

Mmmmm, freaky ! .

good ones Paul only slightly ?

Sorry was a bit busy to reply yesterday. Not wanting to scare monger but its possible that it could be canker stain of plane (Ceratocystis platani) It's not been found in the UK as yet as far as I know, and is thought to be confined to the continent in Italy, Greece and southern France We've been monitoring for it across the London boroughs and have managed to have a ban on imports of plane from nursery's across the infected zones based on the survey we carried out in 2014 & 2015. Do you know quickly these Planes become dysfunctional? Any other tree species gone the same way in the immediate vicinity? Possibly worth informing Forest Research to be on the safe side. http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/FCPH-PW.pdf/$FILE/FCPH-PW.pdf Of course it could well be something entirely different .

It is indeed, was it my boyish good looks that gave it away ? .

As another colleague prepares to move on, I've been reflecting on how things have changed and who I've worked with over the last quarter century or so. Interesting to see how PPE has changed. I was once a flourishing, young, green sapling full of life, but now I'm more akin to a life form that's "interesting biologically, aesthetically and culturally, because of my age, size and condition" Lets see some then and now shots ! .

Thank you, very useful .

Interesting article on the subject........ https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/fnr/fnr-474-w.pdf .

Where are these? .

I think this is a given Gary. It's something we looked at fairly closely whilst climbing and recording the pollards in the Basque in 2009 (specifically cuts and regrowth) for Helen Read's Arb Journal paper on "Restoration of lapsed pollards; Evaluation of techniques and guidance for future work" Volume 35, Issue 2, 2013 I think what's perhaps important here is the orientation of the exposed wood to desiccation. Hence the historical mulch mats in one of the attached images. I heard Dr Dirk Dujesiefken talk last year where he looked at some studies at covering natural wounds and pruning wounds with breathable materials to help keep them from desiccating and then observing meristematic tissue forming on the wounds, where they would perhaps dry up and do nothing if left uncovered. .

Thanks for your considered thoughts fellas Although professing no knowledge on the subject, It sounds like dosage length and knowing the power output is key to exposure management. I'll contact the phone engineers. .

Agreed its a relatively small tree Mick, and wouldn't take too long to complete, but we were in the process of sending our apprentice up to carry out the work (it would have been his first reduction and carried out by hand saw) This would have taken him considerably more that 1 hour. But being public sector, we can afford the time to develop him. .

Agreed .

In an attempt to replicate the outcome above, (whilst the tree was being worked on again this week and on another similar branch which had no option for short linear reduction) we've mimicked the first fracture by creating a new one on the same same side (cardinal point) of the crown. This fracture was created by partially cutting through the top of the branch at a steep angle and carefully pulling it apart with a tag line to get a slow long tear. It will be interesting to see if the fact that the original fracture which was on the north side of the tree (away from UV desiccation) was whether this is the key to successful callus bud formation. As a control, there are other fractures on other pollards facing different cardinals .

After watching and trying to record this phenomenon for a number of years, we finally came across what are undoubtedly adventitious epicormic buds, forming on callus tissue formed on the edges of a deliberately torn/fractured branch. The tree below is a lapsed 350 year old beech pollard which is subject to a cyclical pruning regime to manage down the lapsed pollard poles back toward the bolling. Removing branch weight (which can lead to pollard poles naturally fracturing off the tree due to lever arm and decay issues) whilst where possible, maintaining a retrenching canopy where buds develop lower down and within the existing canopy. This technique hopefully leads to a more stable tree which aims to both continue to exist and maintain a cultural woodland practice and enhance the sites fragile biodiversity. On assessment, this branch had no buds to prune it back to on its last cycle (some 4/5 years ago) so it was sacrificed back to a relatively long stub to remove significant wood weight from the delicate bolling. The fracture was created to expose the maximum amount of potential callus tissue as was possible, without ripping it back to and past the bolling point at the top of the trunk. This practice, (although not scientific and looking like a 'cowboy arborist' has been attacking it with a pole saw) has the potential to offer up additional options to help with the reduction process which can be stretched across decades. More buds forming lower down, the better ! .

Cheers Tom, out of interest who imposed that restriction? do you suppose that the different departments are that well connected and overlap? .