dguntertrees

Great pic Sean, the resemblance to the present is not considerable....

Ekka, I can confirm the presence of fruiting bodies at the base of a number of those trees back in 2006. I was there in January of that year. I thought Ganoderma.

The shared environment; similair age and condition; proximity to roadside and presence of at least one pathogenic fungi, IN ADDITION to the failure of a number of trees within a relatively short period of time really gives me concerns for the remainder of these trees.

Sean, I agree that under happier circumstances, PHC would be the way to go, however I believe that the opportunity has long since past.

The Resistograph is certainly a good tool for the job, although I'm not too sure that its a good idea if one was planning on retaining any trees that showed "acceptable" levels of decay (if any).

I guess it depends on how far BCC are willing to go budget-wise to retain these historically significant trees. If they were located out in the middle of the park, and away from the road, then they could be fenced off and allowed to senesce quietly to the ground (which in turn would be beneficial in a number of other ways). As things stand, I think that the risk of more failures may tip the balance of opinion.

Given the benefit of hindsight, initially the road, and later the kerbing were bad moves, but hindsight is 20-20.

BCC have spent much money on these trees, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing if lessons are learned and research done that will help other trees in similair conditions from reaching this impasse. I believe (and hope)that this is the case. We may in a few years be quoting passages from the research done here in our future reports. Be a shame to waste all that cash hey?

Dave