Our toolkit

The many years of working with trees, learning about trees and advising about their management gives us the ability to interpret visual signs - the body language of trees – and diagnose problems or provide prognoses about the likely future development of defects. 

At times, all that is not enough.  We use specialised diagnostic equipment that provides a unique insight into of some of the less visible characteristics of trees.

Tree stability

 is often not readily apparent and can be influenced by site characteristics and damage to roots caused by excavation or fire.  

Movement of the root plate recorded by tilt sensors and interpreted by sophisticated treesensor.com software  provides an accurate measure of tree stability.  
 

Decay

 and cavities in trunks or branches can be 

detected and mapped by recording the speed of sound between established points on the periphery of woody cross sections. The technique is called sonic tomography.  Velocity of sound through wood depends on the modulus of elasticity and density of the wood itself.  Damage and disease in trees can lead to fractures, cavities, or rot, which reduces elasticity and density of the wood.  The sonic tomograph uses relative sound velocities so that the system calibrates itself automatically at each measured cross-section.  Due to the low invasiveness of the measurements, tomography can be conducted repeatedly on the same specimen and compared to earlier readings to evaluate the progress of wood decline in relation to the production of new wood.

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