Gary Prentice

Common ash, well ashes in general.

Blight is a rapid and complete chlorosis, browning, then death of plant tissues such as leaves, branches, twigs, or floral organs.[1] Accordingly, many diseases that primarily exhibit this symptom are called blights. Several notable examples are: Late blight of potato, caused by the water mold Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary, the disease which led to the Great Irish Famine Southern corn leaf blight, caused by the fungus Cochliobolus heterostrophus (Drechs.) Drechs, anamorph Bipolaris maydis (Nisikado & Miyake) Shoemaker, incited a severe loss of corn in the United States in 1970.[2]

Do GM crops make it better or worse? As I understand it the Irish potato famine was due to a Phytophthora that killed the entire crop across the country, of one variety of potato, in around six weeks. Reducing diversity seems a step backwards.

Risk management: ALARP at a glance WWW.HSE.GOV.UK I'm not 100% that I'm following your argument, but if you're saying that every action is risk free, well I'd beg to differ. If even using a chainsaw was without risk there would be no need for PPE. The point I was making to Khriss was that any medical procedure and or medication comes with some risk. Usually the more harmful hazards that these medications (side affects) present are determined to be within the tolerable category of risk assessment. If a million people significantly benefit from a drug but 1-2% suffer an adverse reaction, even death, I guess that's considered tolerable. Some of the affects of chemotherapy was once explained to me. Side affects include the increased probability of susceptibility to other cancers, i.e. you're more likely to get cancer after chemo. In a nutshell, chemo is extremely harmful to the body, you're pumped full of cyto-toxic/harmful to cell chemicals. The Doctor considers the outcome of giving/not giving chemo. Will the patient die if they don't receive chemo? If they will, then the benefits outweigh the risks and disbenefits. I asked my oncologist today whether a chemo cycle booked for next week will reduce my defences below what they are now (blood counts are improving from the last cycle 2-3 weeks ago). The answer is yes they will. meaning that I'll be more susceptible to Covid than I am now, until with the aid of other medication my blood counts improve again. I just accept that there is risk involved in everything and practically nothing is 100% risk free. You just hope with pharmaceuticals that testing and approvals are as they should be and risks are ALARP.

The number of staff members that patients interact with is scary, once you take into account nurses, catering staff, domestics and cleaners. As a patient it's better not to begin to calculate how many people all of these have come into contact with outside of the hospital.

You'd still have to keep 2 m from her though

Ain't that just business as normal? Seems like every week there's an announcement about the tasks the police are insufficiently funded/staffed to do anyway. Am I the only one who finds it odd that one force is flying drones around the National Park checking that people aren't walking hand in hand and dyeing lakes black to discourage visitors while others are are announcing this? Managing P/ups in breweries comes to mind.

Top pic looks like sycamore to me.

What meds are you on? Can I have some, please? Chemotherapeutic treating my third relapse (in <5 yrs) Sorry, short on the other drug list that is being used to try treat my renal failure due to my cancer relapse . And you're more than F*ing welcome to have some!

You just can't give up your trolling can you? Ignored!

Jeez that soon got personal and aggressive, back off fella! I take it that you are are an expert and qualified in everything that you speak about on the forum then? I'm not a virologist, but have done enough study and research in plant pathology ( particularly in trees) to realise where must of the current threats (Microbiological, viral, bacteria) etc actually from and how the the native populations (flora and fauna) have evolved with them. Globalization changes the scale and rate of evolution of diseases to levels that are difficult to comprehend. Who would have proposed that ash dieback would have decimated this countries ash trees in less 5-6 years. I don't know why I'm even attempting to debate this with you, I've enough of my own personal and health issues to be going on with than to be baited by you. I'm out.

You've dropped your foil hat again ? Not been a virologist I'm in no position to even debate the the whys and wherefore's of this virus, I just accept it's here and we are having to deal with it. Or rather that we should be in a sufficient state of preparedness to deal with it. (or better than we am)

And therein lies the problem. Beneath all of this the real truth is probably close due to successive governments across the world cutting funding. the CDC lost massive funding not many years ago, and in the UK continual different governments have reduced funding in an an atmosphere of ' it's not really needed, it's unnecessary to maintain staff numbers, equipment, medication, supplies, what have you just in case. Well guess what?

I can't see why anything would really change. The environmentals shouldn't change because it's a long term issue in comparison with a 'short term' health pandemic. Would it really make help to improve the economy, of the country as a whole, to ignore or put aside everything this spring?

Wonder if it'll get better or worse when bog roll becomes unavailable

I've only just around o reading about this and, for once, tend to agree with you. With something established it's understandable that in time people will catch and survive it, become immune. and eventually the disease has no more recipients tha can catch it because they are already immune. But initially there has a be maximum death rates of those whwo can't develop immunity. Individuals can become immune by recovering from an earlier infection or through vaccination.[3] Some individuals cannot become immune due to medical reasons, such as an immunodeficiency or immunosuppression, and in this group herd immunity is a crucial method of protection Once a certain threshold has been reached, herd immunity gradually eliminates a disease from a population.[5] This elimination, if achieved worldwide, may result in the permanent reduction in the number of infections to zero, called eradication. Accept that the above is a copy and paste wiki paste job, but there are plenty of references to follow to make your own minds up. Theoretically it works, but to make it work rapidly and far faster than naturally would you need to jettison those that will always be a transmitter. Morals and ethics aside, is this he start of a long and slippery slope where votes/finance/power decides who lives and dies to suit the best spin or sound bite on todays news cycle? This whole fiasco has been badly managed from day 1, with historic cut backs across some of the wealthiest countries, now it's biting our arses are they just looking for some face saving short cut to plug the hole in the dam until sometime crops up to create some breathing space/ It probably doesn't even matter what they think we will be believe because we're learning to accept everything we here without question. Where did I leave my foil hat again?

PM sent

Bit short sighted Saul, should have least waited unto see if she could/did make a fortune flogging them for loads of money. You never know what works and now may have missed a marvellous money maker yourself!

There's a few here much more involved with orchards and fruit tah me who would/could answer this better than me. I've very rarely seen fireblight or silverleaf up here so it's never really worried about. I suppose that in areas where it's more prevalent more effort could be put in the achieve higher temps during composting which I think changes things. Like a lot of things trees will manage and adapt a lot as long as they're growing unstressed in other areas. Shigo used to write about stress and strain. when we try to grow and manage trees towards the limits of their natural habitats we create stresses/or strains that are close to what the tree can cope with They'll survive (just) but won't flourish and the it just takes a little more push, another straw to turn into deline/failure or death. We too often try to do things half-cocked for any easy solution without considering the holistic approach and look at the whole damn tree. Simple answer, mulching benefits soil water evapouration reductions, dought strengthening, soil structure etc etc probably outweigh the disbenefits of not mulching

Don't worry too much about bricks and hardcore as long as there's enough available soil around to allow root grow that the trees can spread into, they want to grow and are good at it. It's the pits full of rubbish soil that roots are trapped in that cause the major issues. If you do decide to 'improve' the rooting area be very careful that you don't damage established and new roots. Sometimes you may get away with just cutting the grass to a minimum 1m radius circle around the stem, rake the grass off a circle of permeable landscape membrane and mulch on top. the mulch will break down over time and will need a bit of topping up but will improve the organic content of the soil below - lots of natural nutrients, improve air and moisture percolation to the underlying roots and reduce any compactef soil that would other inhibit root growth. What's not to love?

IIRC and may not but I think hawthorn has some good protective and anti- disease properties while cherries are higher in sugars that promote growth. But it should be noted that using sugar drenches can be counter objective in some species compared to others of the same genus according to some of Dr Glyn Percivals research so shouldn't be used as a 100% panacea to everything. Still early days, but IMO and simply put at worse doing something to mimic a trees natural rooting soil environmenl to woodland has got o be an improvement and won't usually be harmful. Good question. I think we're still very early in our understanding of all the relationships between different mycorrhizal fungi, which trees have associations, which fungi types have associations and what everything does and how interaction changes with pollutants, pathogens and other component of the soil - incredibly complex. But we've gotta start somewhere.

No symptoms bu pretty much self-isolated for other reasons, and there are no shortage of toilet rolls

There are a short series on pruning written by the RHS available individually covering pruning (throughout the plant lives) which are a godsend for new comers. They tell you the time of year to prune, how and where to prune, how much to prune off. Well worth finding second hand as a reference book to everything - shrubs/fruits. climber/vine the lot. It's not this one from amazon but this book is I think a compendium of all the other titles in the series. I'm away from home for a while but if no-one else can help I'll look it up. Formative pruning, to creature a good framework of scaffold limbs can be difficult to create without practice because you're visually how pruning is going to effect future growth to allow you to develop the shape and form of the crown (within the bounds of the trees genetics to some extent). So, if you are are DIYing try to get a basic understand of the reactions you will cause. While you are avidly understand how trees grow, one or two little jobs first. 1) are the trees well anchored in the soil? and not rocky about in the wind 2) grass around new trees is bad. Lots of competition for moisture and air from grass. Sort it out to provide the optimal conditions for tree growth.Good mulch (not piled up the stem) of well decayed woodchip (Cherry, hawthorn good if you can get it 2-3" deep Healthy vital/vigorous young trees respond best to pruning and the trees expansion growth will be better too. You don't want to prune and the wait a few years for new growth because the tree isn't establishing and growing well. Looking at the photos you can do a bit towards achieving your goals, but consider trees as an investment. It'll take a bit of time and effort to achieve results but they will be worth it as you've done it yourself and moulded these living organisms to fulfil a need - quite satisfying. Just get them growing optimally, tree planting on new sites is usually window dressing when all other contingency funds have been spent and the budget for fantastic planting pits, british standard compliant topsoils, drainage/irrigation and support are all top-notch specification. Chances are the ground worker is told to dig a hole other the a plant it and backfill with whatever came out pf the excavation. brick, rubble, gravel what ever. Sometimes you're lucky and the roots actually end up at the bottom of the stem and not waving at the new owner. Do a bit more reading first but I'll happily try to answer more specific questions than you are asking in this post ATB Gary

An answer for everything you, just like my missus

as long as it's without a noose around your neck, way things are it probably not going to make mucj difference - who can make concrete plans?