Matthew Arnold

Most of the paths are more desire lines than official paths. The trees that are next to the much more used paths are checked on a regular basis especially after gust of 20 mph or more. We have a a few close calls with large limbs from trees on well used desire lines but the trees being felled are normally ones that are in a very bad state and overhanging the surfaced paths. We are also removing the large deadwood from the crowns of the trees that are over the paths. The only trees we fell are ones with extremely severe weaknesses ( big splits, hung up limbs, moving rootplates, large groups of fungal fruiting bodies, etc). We do have a tree which is due to come out in the next couple of years (unless it fails on its own) with a severely damaged root plate caused by the old favourite giant polypore. There is a lift of approximately 2 ft on one side but luckily it is leaning away from the grade 1 listed cottage. If it does go it will take out about 20 trees.

I am taking no offence to any of the replies. If anything it is helping me out. So any replies are being taken on board correct or not.

lol. we generally have two or even three tree officers come round to look at the trees. sometimes all at the same time as it is nice to get three opinions at once and if they all say the same thing then it makes it alot easier. our head tree officer in the council has a masters degree in arboriculture so he is pretty on the ball. what confuses us is that he tells us the fungi names in latin not english. so when you have a tree with 5 or more fungi around it. it can get rather confusing.

I know it sounds a bit confusing but the ex-tree surgeon is also a tree officer and has a degree in tree related matters. he is insured under the county council insurance policy so he can climb the trees to give them a thorough survey. We had them surveyed today as we were in the area as was he. We are going to be following his recommendations as closely as possible. Most of the work is contractor work as only one of us has the relevant tree climbing courses under his belt. And we cna only do "minor" tree works (deadwooding and dangerous limb removing). But we carry out the winter felling unless its over a road or near houses. We are getting the district council tree officer to survey the trees next tuesday so hopefully he will say the same thing about the trees. If not then we would have to wait and see what happens next.

We had an ex-tree surgeon with 30 years expirience of tree surgery and tree inspection and he had condemned the 2 with Dryad's Saddle after doing a echo sounder check. Both of which were rather rotten at the point of entry for the fruiting bodies and got more so towards the base but the sycamore has to be monitored and if needs be we can have it braced so if the roots do give way it will fall either sideways or back into the wood.

Weve got 4 trees to fell around it with all the same problem (Honey Fungus). Although the willow does have a nasty case of willow bracket. I will be keeping a close eye on it as it has got worse of the past week. it is now trickling rather that dripping. Does that change matters with slime flux?

Thank you Bundle 2 . That has cleared it up alot.

i've been taught by my colleagues and contractors that we use that fruiting bodies only expose themselves after being in the tree for a few years which by that time the damage has already been done and will only get worse. Is that correct? And we will get one of our county council tree officers who is also an ex-tree surgeon to do a report on all of them which have defects.

ok. i shall relay that back to my supierior. He can climb them and just reduce them and take out the larger lumps of deadwood.

Cheers. the sycamore with die back was very spongy around where the fungi is. There was also a few more small fruting bodies on a very rotten butress. Last year it was fine but this year something has gotten into the rootplate.

Whilst at work, i was doing a basic tree survey looking at the base, crown and limbs of the bigger trees we have on our biggest site. I found a few fungi. 2 i can identify, one i cannot. The one i cannot identify is growing from the very base of a mature Sycamore out of the buttress roots. One of the buttresses is very soft and easy to indent and break pieces off. There is quite alot of die back in the very top and the leaves have been small and yellow most of the year. Any ideas? I have attached a big group of pictures with my findings during the afternoon. Pic 1- Sycamore with Die back Pic 2- Strange fungi growing on Sycamore with die back Pic 3- Strange looking damage on Ash with possible Honey fungus at base. Pic 4- Ganoderma appalanum growing from large root butress of twin stemmed Ash Pic 5- Dryad's Saddle growing from Twin stemmed Ash Pic 6- Same tree only further away showing height Pic 7- Showing proximity to footpath.

thats nice to know. we did notice that with the timberwolf the feed jaws were much slower than a jensen. And timberwolf are much more complex where Jensen just have a bar for a throttle cable and a simple button on the top and knee bar on the bottom instead of 3 or more setting on a timberwolf

I have a bit of a query. Are Jensen chippers a cheaper version of Timberwolf? As we are just about to borrow one during the winter as we do not have enough money (being part of a council) to buy or hire one.

101 uses for Tracked Chipper. lol. We used the winch on the front of our new truck the other day. Didn't get any pics but we wished we had used a much longer rope. Nice branch dents on the front and a cracked headlight lens.

Its a woodland but when it hasnt been properly managed for nearly 15 years we need to do some tree work. We got severel complaints from members of the public who were concerned about the state of some of the Beech trees. It is not an uncommon thing to get 5 complaints in a week about trees in a specific area. W

Some areas are managed (Laurel and Rhody clumps) and some area are being restored (Heathland) but in general the site is being managed as lightly as possible. if we need to fell dangerous trees as marked out by our own county tree officer then we will do so as effectivley as possible. Most of the trees we fell (depending on rot, location, etc) can be left for a few years but its only the extremely dodgy ones we fell. at the most we fell 15 in the wood each winter. we needed to do a big blitz as there were several hung-up trees over hanging well used paths and a few sizable and hung up ones bordering the car park. they aren't felled just because we want to. its health and saftey orientated.

We mark em just to keep an eye on them rather than fell them. All of the veterans we are leaving to die naturally as they are cracking habitats for Noctule Bats and Greater Horseshoe Bats. Its only the straggly ones (50 year or less) that have dropped significant limbs in the past or have serious decay issues. Last winter we came up with a tree plan which stated that if a tree drops more that 4 branches during a storm and shows signs of decay and fungi shall be felled the following winter or dealt with appropriately. Some of them have to sadley be felled because even the deadwood habitats would pose a threat to members of the public due to the severe decay. We had an instance last year where we had marked a sextuplet group of Beech all with various fungi that cause white or brown rot. The ones with white rot were sonar checked before felling and the brown rot ones were just left as deadwood habitats for the Lesser and Middle Spotted Woodpeckers on the site. Hopefully this has cleared it up a bit. I apolgise if it sounded as if we felled any tree with even the slightest defect (excessive deadwood, slightly tight fork, etc).