Cardiff Treescapes undertake all aspects of tree work including: Reports, Inspections & Pre-Mortgage Inspections, Risk Assessment and Tree Reports, Work Schedules, Sustainable Urban Tree Management, Disease Diagnosis, Sectional Felling, Pruning, Tree Planting, Tree Surgery and Stump Removal
Cardiff Treescapes - Arboricultural Consultants

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DECAY ORGANISMS

The components that make up the woody stems of trees are much sought after by ubiquitous fungi that can exist together with the tree slowly feeding on and breaking down the structure and strength of the wood. At some point the decay will become so advanced as to make the tree liable to collapse with potentially catastrophic results. It has been estimated that a tree will remain stable with up to 70% of its heartwood decayed as long as the 30% remaining forms a ring of solid wood around the outside of the central decay. So how can you determine when a tree has reached this crucial condition?

CASE STUDY:

Problem: Purple flowering Plum with Ganoderma applanatum, on a front driveway in Penarth South Wales. Picture 1 shows the location of the tree over the driveway. Picture 2 shows the size of the fungal bracket, which is clearly increasing in size as shown by the white ring, the current year's growth that is indicative of its rate of decay. Ganoderma spp., cause an intense white rot as they break down the lignin within the main stem.

Solution: Investigate extent of decay to determine whether to remove the tree or reduce load bearing of upper crown by pruning.

Method: Scan the main stem using the picus tomogram, which shows the exact amount of sound wood remaining. Picture 3 shows the device being set up. Picture 4 shows the image generated by the device with the blue and green areas representing severely decayed wood and the brown areas solid wood. Clearly the main stem is extensively decayed with only 10% solid wood remaining. Sadly after looking after this tree for the last 15 years with careful pruning the tree now has to be removed although the upper crown appears healthy.


1. The Location of the tree over the driveway.


2. The Ganoderma fungal bracket.

3. Setting up the scan.

4. The image generated.