 Re: Chestnut Problem
Tim its inadvisable to apply treatments without knowing exactly what it is you are dealing with...you really need to take comprehensive soil root and leaf samples and have them assayed to establish just what is going on in the soil food web. Its more difficult for you being in the UK, but get friendly with some microbiologists at your local uni or college...over here we use SFI labs, they're also set up in the US, but not in the UK as yet.
Even very serious infections are treatable with antagonistic fungal combinations, boosting the beneficial microfauna and flora of the soil also has major benefits for tree health and vigour without the very negative impacts of fertilisers...personally I would caution against fertilising declining trees.
Application of the identified fungi and fungal foods can be done through soil drenching and foliar sprays including the bark.
Shigo used to often comment that when he was touring around the world delivering presentations he would be presented with numerous cases of "new pathogenic plagues" be they fungi or bacteria, his feelings were that these fungi if exotic to the region/country could move rapidly through tree populations previously unexposed to that strain, but that the biology of trees has evolved to deal with the mechanisms of infection utilised by both fungi and bacteria, and what was being observed by Arborists was not some previously unknown natural pathogen but rather the culmination of a range of factors driven most forcefully by the impact of human activities.
Phytophora is a real problem everywhere in the world for those who plant grow and manage vegetation, but its life cycle is understood. Limiting its impact on tree populations is possible I believe, but dependant on how much resource is to be committed to that effort....to some degree comes back around to the oft discussed issue of when is a tree no longer worth retaining.
__________________ Sean  Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
- Kahlil Gibran
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