Island Lescure

Hi, No, not sure. But I would expect lightning damage to have singed another branch as well and for the area where the fissure is narrow (higher up) to occlude instead of looking like two branches rubbing together without fusing. I need to look more into lightning damage...

Just looking for a bit of advice as usual. As title says except that the crack(?) starts at ground level and goes up around 10 meters where the fissure becomes narrower. It is not clear on the video and I don't know why I didn't take a better pic but at 10 meters, you can see where it is forming two ridges that are not occluding. So there is either movement or the bark is getting in the way. I am wondering if scribing the upper area to incite grafting may be an option to recommend. Does anyone have experience with this on sequoias? What about the inrolling bark near the base? I suspect it would eventually cause a sort of ring shake as it pushes against the dead wood. Otherwise all I can recommend is aerial inspection and possibly Picus up there. Wood at base is sound. Sorry about the sideways pics. No idea why they have gone sideways. They are close ups of the inrolling at the base up to maybe 2 meters. [ame] [/ame] Thank you!

Brilliant Green was pretty interesting and was £2.00 through the Kindle app recently. Easy and short read.

Not entirely sure now. It was very irregular, somewhat akin to figures 6 or 7 from the link just provided above. I was surprised that there was no fresh growth (white and grey from Kretzsch) so it is very possible that it was that. Never came accross it before. The cross section of kretzsch from this link does not fit with what I found so it must be Hypoxylon. Not going back to site and have no pics so cannot ascertain which one though.

Well sponge was of no use, next time I will try with a plastic brush. Anyway, whilst inspecting further I eventually found some tiny bits of Kretzchmaria at the base mixed in with moss. So basically, my conclusion of this is that a crack appeared from high winds, Kretzch set in, another crack from weakened stem and wind and now the tree is dangerous. So it goes.

Don't know why but my other post reply is gone. I must not have clicked submit... Anyway, Cheers. If you look on the two bottom pics, you can just about see where I have prised off some bark to see if it is healthy. It is, but I will bring a sponge and some water to clean out the fissure to check it out. It is a birch amongst many so can't spend too much time on it, but it will be interesting to see nonetheless.

Cheers for the ideas!

Hi David, Cheers, Heli option is out and the river thing would not work at this time I think but that is quite an idea.

Cheers, ya looking into it.

Using modular pontoons, pretty shallow hull (if you can call it that) and they can be loaded quite a bit and you can drop bits on:blushing:. But no one here wants to get into the water, so I will keep that in mind. Will do! Cheers!

Ya, I can just see someone rubbing their hands together thinking 'man, I might be making £1200 an hour for a week!' Sorry guys

Hi, We have need of a climber or two on a sub-contract basis, for the time being at least, with the possibility of going PAYE later if that is wanted. The work consists mostly of riverside operations from around Bradfield to York. These often include removals, crown-lifting and just strimming on steep banks. You will need a CSCS card and basic climbing tickets along with an interest in trees and cooperation. For any info, give Paul a ring on 07940758964. Follow the website link in my sig for some info.

Thanks for the replies. I thought frost cracks are a myth? Its not a tall tree and the crown is fine bar a partially failed branch probably from wind or snow. I find it strange that it has managed to occlude and manage the higher region but not at all the lower. I will have to prod and hammer the bottom portion to see if there is decay as I am happy with the top portion but not the bottom.

We have managed to find a solution that everyone is happy with. We are getting a 25tonne winch which will be capable of pulling the trees over in one, hopefully, and up the slope quickly. This will mean that no rigging will be required, which is what was concerning me the most. Still interested in what a skyline is though...

Can you elaborate on that please or do you have some pics? No idea what a skyline is and neither does google apparently. Cheers!

Nice one. That is quite some lifting power.

Nothing on opposite side. No buckling or twisting. No smell from exudation. Thought it might be lightning damage at first but nothing above, could it still be?

Thanks for the replies. I will have to see if the powers that be are more interested in their budget or timescale or whether they just want to keep it simple as the H&S will be through the roof

Cheers! Got a scanner? Nevermind, just noticed that they are still selling them so...Not too sure of copyright issues but I imagine they have some. P.S. if you have a subscription, you have access to the PDF versions. hint, hint. Arb Climber Magazine - UPDATE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. If you are a subscriber and have changed emails in the past year or two can you let us know: [email protected] Just type your full name in the subject line and hit 'send' . We can then check and upda

We will have a pontoon for the other trees that need to be removed (ones standing in the middle of the river) so it is an option, but the river is shallow and not very wide. We will look at that option again when we go there to re-evaluate.

Just looking for ideas as to how to achieve this: 15 largish, approx 1m dia 15metre+, trees to be removed from river edge without letting anything go into the river. The land they are on cannot be accessed due to landslide and opposite bank of river cannot be used. The idea presented to us now is to install a forestry tractor above the landslide, circa 100m away. The slope is about 15-25%. Then rig stuff down onto the land at base of trees and pull everything up with the tractor cable. As you can imagine, many trees are leaning over the water. All these trees moved with the landslide; see article for details We have to go back to see if this is even possible and to inspect the trees as they may be unstable. When we looked at the job we thought to drop them in the river and pull them out from the farmer's field on the other side... Now I am wondering if we can use a helicopter to make things quick and painless... But I have never done this before so, does anyone know: If one can hire them for this in the UK and who to contact? how much they can lift? general idea of how much per day? Cheers, Island

Thanks! Didn't realise it could do that before.

Yes there is some compression there. I have definitely gotten a saw trapped that way before and indeed boring through the middle prevents that from happening. But I think the idea is that this compressive strength is not strong enough to cause the splitting of the forks and when it is, the cambium layers, from each stem, will crush/kill each other resulting in no further, significant, compression.

On the base of a mature sycamore by a small river. Couldn't get around to the other side due to the river so I videoed it... Thought it might be Rigidiporus ulmarius at first but then I wasn't convinced. Then I thought Trametes gibbosa but the pores are too large. Are there two fungi? [ame] [/ame][ame] [/ame] Any help or direction appreciated. Thanks

Ya, totally agree! I have gotten some saws and feet jammed. But, and let me try to get this right, the closing of the unions after the removal of a load would seem to happen because the forces used to support the weight are suddenly not having to support so much weight and therefore the forces, compressive or tensile depending on the load above, but in the case of the union closing, compressive on the outside and tensile within the fork, push or pull in their respective direction with more ease than if they were loaded. And then the saw gets trapped because the two stems/branches, no longer loaded, are pushed against each other, but I would think that that is the reason, indirectly because of the forces within the stems themselves. That makes sense to me, please correct me if I am wrong.