Tree management

[Mike Starner]

I recently started a new job as an in house arborist for a large government facility. The new job involves caring for trees on 300 acres. It is a combination of park trees, street trees and residential trees. Can anyone suggest some resources on tree management programs. The challenge is to prioritize the work and schedule pruning. Anyone with info on managing large properties please give me some insight on how to approach inspecting and scheduling work for a job of this magnitude.

THANKS

 

[treeman82]

if you get TCI check about a month or two ago. dr. dennis ryan from the stockbridge school wrote several articles on this very issue. if you have any further questions i would say to talk with your local tree warden.

 

[John Paul McMillin]

hey mike , i am the arborist for a 500 acre country club. You need to do an inspection of all the trees and come up with a detailed program. Hazard trees would be on the top of the priority list, especially where there are children or people in the target zone. You need to do weekly monitoring and put everything down on paper. Set up a pruning schedule. Set up an insect and disease program. You may even be able to get a GPS map started on the computer. I dont have one yet but are working on doing one. Start with the trees that need the most attention and get your hazard trees out . After you take care of what is critical you will be able to focus more on the other areas of your program. Do you have a crew, and what kind of equipment do you have? Where are you in Maryland excactly, I live near Maryland. john ps. keep the residents informed on what you are doing , it keeps them happy when they know what is happenning to the trees.

 

[Toddppm]

Being government they might put out for a full survey of the property by a consulting arborist. Would save a whole lot of headaches . I've seen a map of a property near me with a full count and ID of the whole property , I think it was done by Lew Bloch who is is MD. If they'll pay that's the way I'd try to steer them so you can concentrate on the care instead of the paperwork.

 

[Mike Starner]

I will run a three man crew. They are providing a 55 ft. bucket truck, vermeer 1230 chipper, large stump grinder, and a mack prentice loader. I will have to survey, schedule, and perform all the tree work. Also will be required to diagnos insect, disease and physical injury problems. One thing I don't have to worry about is spraying since they have men that do that, maybe just perscribe treatments. I live just west of Baltimore and the job is in Annapolis. I am confident that everything will go well , the guys I will work for seem great and the trees are all very nice. I still have to interview for second climber and that will be the hard part!

I have a 1200 tree prune quota, do you have a simialar quota? Do you routinely trim all the trees in one area or do you follow a pruning calander and jump around?

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

1200 trees a year, if you prune 4 days a week, 4 weeks (there are 4.333 weeks in the average month) a month for twelve months you have 192 days in the year. I've used this for planning to cover all holidays, vacations, weekends, weather, hunting, and breakdowns.

You need to average 6.25 trees per crew day. Not a bad number to shoot for since it gives you 31 trees on a perfect week.

One thing you need to do is keep the big picture in mind. Once you feel you can let the crew go unsupervised you need to cruise the property on a regular basis. It should be done in a consistant maner too, so you get the same veiws to compare. This is to catch pest outbreaks and decline symptoms.

Next look for standards for new plantings. We have a high mortality of trees under 10 years due to poor selection and no standards. eg flair must be visible at time of digging. Only trees containerized for less then one year. Spades of maximum size usible for the site shall be used. Single leadre structure....

ISA has a great number of usefull books.

Never stop asking questions.