Video Resistograph demo of "suss" tree

[Ekka]

The tree didn't look too bad by VTA but was in a playground with high value targets ... kids!

Very little die back, nice and green.

Copy of final tape is in pic below but for video link to the event and how it all works ...

Click here for video

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

I have carried out Resi tests no end of times and very very often the centre of the tree is heavely decayed and the rest of the tree looks healthy and in actual fact when it boils down to it ,the tree is healthy ,even if colonised by a decaying fungus.

I see this very often in sycamores and oaks.

 

[Shaun Bowler]

We did some special tests on Blue Gum Eucs @ 100',70 years old, using the restograph that were slated for removals. The RG was used, the trees were removed, sections of the trees were taken to a lab for extensive tests. Comparisons were made with the RG vs. lab tests. The results were inconclusive.
It seems to me that for what the RG can offer the industry at this tme, there are to many variables/interpretations that must be made to rely on the RG.
Power source- batterys lose power gradually. Drill bits get dull. Tree density. The catch all, what the person interpreting the results wants for the client.

 

[Ekka]

Yeah there is always bit of a debate, some people say that a core sample is the most accurate but it's a big wound .... I think the resistograph is probably the most accurate but you have to be good at reading the graph.

This tree will go now as the risk factor is too high in that location, there are a few smaller hollows further up and the top leader has been busted out in a previous storm. So it was the councils way of verifying.

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

In actual fact i was told about some new research that showed fungi preferred to colonize smaller holes made by resistagraphs etc, bigger holes made by increment borers tended to not be so readily colonized,strange but supposedly true ,apparently bigger holes are drier and less favorable to most decay fungi and smaller holes are a preferred environment for fungi because there more moist....there never seems to be anything black or white regarding trees and fungi ever

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

My information was gained from the head of arboriculture Merrist Wood horticultural college.