In article ,
penance writes:
|
| I'll be interested to hear the findings.

Yes.

| I have felled many trees that display the signs of chemical
| compartmentalisation, sometimes the tree can appear perfectly healthy,
| and often is, but obviously it may be more sinister.
| Pictures would be helpful.

And, as Rackham points out, fungal infection of the heartwood
is a normal part of many tree species' development, and is NOT
biologically unhealthy! Though it is undesirable from a forestry
point of view ....

I would hesitate to guess in what proportion of trees with
fungal infection and chemical compartmentalisation the former
was the cause of the latter (rather than both being the result
of some third 'attack'). So identifying the cause needs more
effort than just looking at the damaged tissue under a microscope
or culturing samples and looking for fungi/bacteria/etc.

It's like my personal hypothesis of coral spot - i.e. that it
is NOT generally the cause of the branches dying back, but gets
the blame because it infects the bark immediately it starts to
die from another cause. Yes, that could be investigated, but
it would need expensive laboratory work.

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple"


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.