Fungi on Horse Chestnut

[mollisia]

Hallo,

Originally Posted by Chestnut1976

Molissa - How can a tree surgeon tell how alive or dead the tree is? It does look sick with missing and girdled bark, but how can they tell if it is dying or may recover?

I don't know if there is more then one methode, but one which I have seen is that the specialist drills a hole into the tree with a hollow driller (sorry, I miss the correct words in english, hope you can guess what I mean). When you draw back this hollow driller, you recieve a tube like piece of wood. So they drill deep enough into the middle of the stem and when they draw back and look at the wooden pice they took out, they can see which parts of the tree are attacked and decomposd and which are still firm. You can do this in different sides and different hights of the tree, so you get a good emagination which parts are solide and which are decomposed already.

best regards,
Andreas

[mollisia]

Hallo Nick,

Originally Posted by NickCantle

So does that mean that the tree was already decaying and/or dying from an attack from another fungus?

Not necessarily from a fungus, but the tree must be week or stressed or partly dead yb whatever so that Pleurotus can attack. It never can attack a sound tree, as e.g. Honey Mushroom can.

Once the tree is already on its way to death, P. ostreatus feeds off of the already decaying matter?

Yes it does, but when Pleurotus sits already there, it can also slowly attack the surrounding sound parts of the wood. In German there is a special term called "Schwächeparasit" what is translated something like "weekness-parasite" and means that the species can only act as a parasite in week hosts.

I did read somewhere that P. ostreatus is a saprotroph though

Yes, thats not wrong, but it's only half of the truth. In all these wood inhabiting species the frontiers between saprobionts and parasites are not sharp and most of them can behave in both ways. The strongest parasites are Root Rot and Honey Mushromm, but both species can also live for years on completely dead wood and therefore purely saprobiontic. I have found Root Rot sitting on a spruce cone e.g.

best regards,
Andreas

[solus]

Originally Posted by mollisia

... the specialist drills a hole into the tree with a hollow driller (sorry, I miss the correct words in english, hope you can guess what I mean).
Andreas

I think it's an auger. Oh, and without wanting to be in any way critcal of your excellent English (seeing as my knowlegde of German doesn't extend beyond 'hamburger') in an earlier post you asked "...weekend (this word exists? Looks like having weekend *gg*) already..." This would be weak
and weakened as in having been made ill or feeble rather than weekend which is Saturday and Sunday.

[mollisia]

Originally Posted by solus

I think it's an auger. Oh, and without wanting to be in any way critcal of your excellent English (seeing as my knowlegde of German doesn't extend beyond 'hamburger') in an earlier post you asked "...weekend (this word exists? Looks like having weekend *gg*) already..." This would be weak
and weakened as in having been made ill or feeble rather than weekend which is Saturday and Sunday.

Hallo solus,

thank you, that was what I exactly wanted to know. And if it were not that late, I should have remembered myself that "weak" is not spelled "week". Big minus for my side

thanks,
Andreas

[solus]

Originally Posted by mollisia

Big minus for my side

Oh, I don't know! Haven't we all been weakened by the excesses of the weekend?!

Sorry - off to hide down a hole for that!

[Adam Cheeseman]

Originally Posted by Chestnut1976

I would be interested to hear of the treatment for the leaf miner and understand what a arboriculturist does to establish if the tree is stable or not...

Hi, Regards the leaf miner moth, although this causes widespread damage to a tree it is completel;y restricted to the leaves and therefore does not directly harm the tree itself. Considered opinion is that the damge done is of not significant importance despite the importance of leaves to a tree. Consequently there are few places that treat the leaf miner problem when there is a bigger problem in the canker about.

Cheers,

Adam