Matthew Arnold

We're gonna be felling a pair of 100 year old beech trees this winter (or our contractors are). They both have 4 fungi on each which is kind of strange as the fungi are growing in the same place on the trees. The fungi in question are Honey fungus, Kreztschmaria deusta, Ganoderma and Giant Polypore. I shall hopefully get a pic of the stumps after they have been felled. We had them sonar checked a couple of weeks back and if we are lucky there is about 3 inches of good wood holding one tree and 6 inches on the second tree. So our contractors are getting a "spider like" cherry picker to drop em as they are next to a busy road. We knew they had Kretzschmaria but not the other 3.

Last year i did a basic tree survey and inspection course on one of the local estates near to where i'm based. I did it with my colleagues, one of them had done a course in tree dynamics when he was at college. It was rather amusing as all of my colleagues and i were just saying "fell it" to every single tre that came up on the slideshow. After we did the tree inspection course we went round with marker paint in September and marked up all the trees with defects. We did the same in a 26 acre piece of semi-natural woodland we manage and had approximately 50 complaints as most of the trees marked were so called "veterans". The oldest trees in the woodland are about 250 years old and are well away from any footpath. The trees to be felled are decent sized beech trees riddled with Ganoderma appalanum and the ultimate nastys, Giant Polypore and Honey fungus. We had an outbreak of bleeding canker on a 250sqm area of mature Oak and Sweet Chestnut last autumn. All of the trees were felled much to the upset of the users of the woods. Getting back to the subject has anyone been taught/assessed by Derek Brinsley?

Cheers guys. It quite funny as i use C and O Tractors for our major tool maintenance and repairs. So i shall go asked them on Thursday when i am back in the office.

Hi guys and gals Does anyone know wot file size should be used to sharpen a chisel toothed clearing saw? As one of our volunteers who has been trained to use them has smacked a couple of peices of wire and a nice big stone cutting down laurel and hazel coppice. Also, I know this would sound typical of a counci lworker but how often should we replace air filters on chainsaws? And would putting refined fuel (BP Ultimate, Shell V-Power, etc) through the tanks clear the systems or does it just work on fuel injection systems?

My colleagues heard me scream and saw me run like **** stripping down to my boxers. The boss said he thought i had become a bit of a loon lol. nice bit from the sympathy as usual

We've had this sort of thing happen on one of my sites. There was a line of about 40 Leylandii and some very large Ash, Sycamore and a massive Aspen. All of the trees were in perfect order but they were felled in May last year the worst time to fell ivy clad trees. About 3 months later the contractors ripped out the line of leylandii stumps and ground out the rest. 2 months after that the builders came in a dug down about 6 ft to get the site perfectly level to the boundary. They cut through about half the root system of several coppice stools on our side of the boundary. As the foundations were laid the first stool gave up the ghost and landed in the builders site. We very quickly got our county council tree surgeons come and do an emergency clearance. We billed the building company for the work. 3 days of work with 4 men, 1 van and TW190 chipper and fuel = £4,500 for the removal of 6 large sycamore, ash and hornbeam coppice stools.

the fruiting bodies died off in May then re-sprouted in July and they just went nuts. I couldn't get any pictures of it then as we had a nice big Hornets nest in the stump which i found out to my cost. got stung atleast 25 times. Ended up in the local A & E for nearly 2 hours being doped up on anti-histamines

Whilst looking through the pics i have take nwhilst at work. I found some nice ones of some extensive Dryads saddle growing from a massive Ash stump( hence the reason for felling). Has anyone seen Dryad's Saddle growth like this?

I work in north dorset on lots of small nature reserves and several long distance trails. We have all recently done a basic tree survey and inspection course so its all fresh in our minds what to look for. I've checked out the fungi gallery the amount of fungi in there i recognise that is growing on our trees is frightening. Although i work on many little sites in north dorset we have a couple of woodlands down in west dorset which are managed by the team down there. We have just been around and marked up the trees for felling this winter whci has ever upsets lots of people as we cut loads down each winter but only ill ones, damaged ones or fungi ridden.

None of the surrounding trees are showing signs of being a bit sick. apart from a bit of deadwood in the crown there isnt much to show for ill health. the two lower trees have quite a bit of epicormic growth that we knock back every few months in the spring and summer but limes send epicormic growth out for a past time