jomoco
Tree Freak
One of my very favorite trees in the world are the indigenous Coastal Live Oaks(Quercus agrifolia) of SoCal. These trees while not particularly tall, 75-85 feet, can grow laterally as much as vertically and even further.
On the Indian Res today I spent the entire day on a very very old creekside live oak that had spit a huge lateral off it's stump, crushing a fence and landing in an outdoor weight lifting and training area, thankfully un-occupied when the failure happened.
Winds were kickin up here yesterday at 25+ mph, and lots of trees and sections of trees hit the ground hard.
The interesting thing about this tree was it's huge canopy spread compared to it's height at 65 feet, the spread must have been 100 feet across before it lost that lateral branch of about 30 inches dia right off the stump of about 84 inches across at ground level.
I would estimate the tree's age at 500+ years old, and to all outward appearances, thriving creekside giant before it shed this huge lateral. There were old 18-24 inch branch removal callouses completely healed over and closed from prior work done from ground level.
But once this lateral shed off the stump, it provided an entrance to a huge dome of hollowed out decay atleast 3 feet across at the very center of the stump at ground level and below. But on an 84 inch across stump, could be considered negligible and natural for this ancient of a tree. I smelt no telltale odor of Armillaria inside, but there was a very fine coating of rust colored powder settled onto very punky decayed walls of failed wood deep inside the wound hole.
Growing inside this hollow dome was a huge clamshell fan shaped fruiting body of a fungus 6-8 inches across, and a root as wide as my wrist. It doesn't smell like Armillaria to me, so I'm having it ID'd at county ag, and hoping it's not Armillaria and that the lightening of end weight on the remaining big lateral limbs, will hold things in good stead till I get the lab results back on this fungus.
This tree still has every outward appearance of vitality and good health, and if this hollow stump is natural, and not the work of Armillaria, I'm going to recommend Cabling as a partial life pro-longing form of hospice care for the old giant. I'll also recommend they fence it's perimeter and install warning signs around it saying keep out no tresspassing/hazard tree. Anything but cutting this magnificent old Live Oak down.
However if the lab says Armillaria?
Considering the tree is in a somewhat remote area of the creek, as long as they move the weightlifters out and somewhere else, I feel it's worth taking a little time to get a positive diagnosis of the fungus before recommending death and no further remedial work to save it.
I don't suppose any of you guys know of any truly effective treatments for Armillaria do yu?
I keep thinking that putting an artificial halide growing light inside the hollow dome of that stump, would kill any fungus in there?
Any ideas on how to save this hollow old SoCal vet of a tree.
I'll post pics once I get the lab results in.
jomoco
On the Indian Res today I spent the entire day on a very very old creekside live oak that had spit a huge lateral off it's stump, crushing a fence and landing in an outdoor weight lifting and training area, thankfully un-occupied when the failure happened.
Winds were kickin up here yesterday at 25+ mph, and lots of trees and sections of trees hit the ground hard.
The interesting thing about this tree was it's huge canopy spread compared to it's height at 65 feet, the spread must have been 100 feet across before it lost that lateral branch of about 30 inches dia right off the stump of about 84 inches across at ground level.
I would estimate the tree's age at 500+ years old, and to all outward appearances, thriving creekside giant before it shed this huge lateral. There were old 18-24 inch branch removal callouses completely healed over and closed from prior work done from ground level.
But once this lateral shed off the stump, it provided an entrance to a huge dome of hollowed out decay atleast 3 feet across at the very center of the stump at ground level and below. But on an 84 inch across stump, could be considered negligible and natural for this ancient of a tree. I smelt no telltale odor of Armillaria inside, but there was a very fine coating of rust colored powder settled onto very punky decayed walls of failed wood deep inside the wound hole.
Growing inside this hollow dome was a huge clamshell fan shaped fruiting body of a fungus 6-8 inches across, and a root as wide as my wrist. It doesn't smell like Armillaria to me, so I'm having it ID'd at county ag, and hoping it's not Armillaria and that the lightening of end weight on the remaining big lateral limbs, will hold things in good stead till I get the lab results back on this fungus.
This tree still has every outward appearance of vitality and good health, and if this hollow stump is natural, and not the work of Armillaria, I'm going to recommend Cabling as a partial life pro-longing form of hospice care for the old giant. I'll also recommend they fence it's perimeter and install warning signs around it saying keep out no tresspassing/hazard tree. Anything but cutting this magnificent old Live Oak down.
However if the lab says Armillaria?
Considering the tree is in a somewhat remote area of the creek, as long as they move the weightlifters out and somewhere else, I feel it's worth taking a little time to get a positive diagnosis of the fungus before recommending death and no further remedial work to save it.
I don't suppose any of you guys know of any truly effective treatments for Armillaria do yu?
I keep thinking that putting an artificial halide growing light inside the hollow dome of that stump, would kill any fungus in there?
Any ideas on how to save this hollow old SoCal vet of a tree.
I'll post pics once I get the lab results in.
jomoco