Fungal infection and tree failure

Hi all,

Got called out to a job on Monday where a beech tree had failed in high winds and brought down nearby powerlines. It was pretty easy to see why it failed, but was still really interesting to investigate the tree further, looking at old natural breakages and man-made limb removal that led to infection.


The damage.


The culprit! (Fomes fomentarius)


Poor cutting practice and possible way of entry for the pathogen.


Snapped out like a carrot.

I thought I'd post this, even though not many of us will have mature beech trees in our gardens, as it shows what can happen when branches are removed incorrectly. The wound in this tree is old and large, but a small wound will have exactly the same consequences given time. The importance of cutting back to the branch collar and deciding whether it is neccessary to remove a large limb is well depicted here.

Thanks for looking,
Matthew

 

Thats interesting Matthew, am I right in thinking beech is particularly susceptible to this kind of thing.

I saw a beech tree locally that was blown down a couple of years ago, the whole trunk was shattered and most of the wood was almost like a crumbly type of rubber.
Previous to it being blown down it appeared to be doing well, in full leaf but with the odd bracket fungus here and there.

 

Mathew, good post. From a domestic point of view aside from the point about proper cuts it also highlights the importance of periodic profesional surveys if close to buildings, sighns of fungi or branch drop.

Pete, Bracket Fungus (ganoderma) is a tell tale sighn of internal decay.

 

The one I saw certainly had internal decay.:gnthb:

But not obvious to the untrained eye.

 

Hi Pete,

You are correct - Horseshoe or tinder fungus like this is commonly found on birch and beech particularly. The inside was a mess of squishy fibres that had spread throughout the heartwood and was making it's way through the sapwood also. This tree was doomed from a long time ago. As the water-conducting sapwood wasn't too damaged it meant the tree looked healthy apart from the fungal brackets and broken limbs.

 

The vast majority of wood-feeding fungi live off dead wood. These are a problem, if they make the tree structurally less sound. Hollow trees are often hollow because fungi have digested away the dead heartwood in the core and as T S suggests bad pruning or branch breaking can lead to this.Such hollow trees are prone to breaking in gales, snow storms and other stresses.

 

And beech is probably one of the least durable hardwoods there is, so it catches everthing there is going I suppose, bearing in mind the heartwood is actually dead anyway.