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I performed a bit of R&D on a large Armillaria riddled Oak here Q. Agrifolia, on Casino property, in a remote riverbed location.

Codominate, 48 inch DBH, splitting in half, and tied back together by me with bull ropes, pulleys and a Hobb's device.

I wanted to determine whether depriving Armillaria mellea mushrooms and rhizosome shoestrings of darkness, would have any detrimental affects on either fruit or shoestring networks.

The experiment only lasted long enough to wither the mushrooms considerably after two weeks of nonstop exposure artificial grow lights both from inside and outside the trunk base. Basically a light teepee reaching six feet up the trunk.

I put a weak link onto the strap holding the Hobb's to the trunk, and it failed after only a few weeks, bringing my mad amateur mycologists experiment to an abrupt and sudden end.

Sunlight's disinfectant anti fungal properties ain't exactly unheard of.....

One of you blokes should follow up on my promising failure?

Jemco
 
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That's great info! What stands out to me is that he mentioned that Armillaria genus fungi seem to be more prevalent in disturbed forests and urban/suburban landscape. Cross reference that with research that shows that many of the fungi species antagonistic to Armillaria are saphrophytic on fallen deadwood debris and there is a strong strategy as far as prevention/mediation goes. For wooded landscape on properties leave the deadwood on the ground in the forest to keep the anti-Armillaria saphrophytes in play. That's a tough sell for some of my customers, they want their woods to be "orderly and clean" unfortunately. For residential landscape trees it would make sense to increase the area of non-turf mulched areas under trees, plant them with semi-shade native understory plants and provide refreshment of dead leaves and woody material into the mulched area on a long-term regular basis. This is preventative not solving an existing severe Amillaria infestation of a tree. I suspect that increasing the diversity and presence of saphrophytic fungi by improving the soil make-up and surface material under the tree towards a more natural forest soil system would go a long way towards reducing the presence of Armillaria on a residential property. Not to mention how much that will help any landscape tree even without Armillaria in the mix.
-AJ
 
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So a client calls about a dying tree. "No problem...we can help". Tomorrow there is a truck load of dead logs placed nicely around the base of the tree "Problem solved, Mam. That'll be $550 for the installation of the logs and an annual rental fee of $25 per log. I recommend leaving them in place for at least 5-7 years. :LOL:

I wonder how big the chunks need to be to support some of those fungi? I tell people who want to "clean" their woods, to stop calling it "dead logs" and start calling it "coarse woody debris". You'll sound more sophisticated, and the really good stuff that you are leaving in the woods doesn't sound so much like unwanted junk anymore either!
 
ATH said:
So a client calls about a dying tree. "No problem...we can help". Tomorrow there is a truck load of dead logs placed nicely around the base of the tree "Problem solved, Mam. That'll be $550 for the installation of the logs and an annual rental fee of $25 per log. I recommend leaving them in place for at least 5-7 years. :LOL:

I wonder how big the chunks need to be to support some of those fungi? I tell people who want to "clean" their woods, to stop calling it "dead logs" and start calling it "coarse woody debris". You'll sound more sophisticated, and the really good stuff that you are leaving in the woods doesn't sound so much like unwanted junk anymore either!
Click to expand...

Didn't know whether to hit "Love" or "Laugh" so I hit "Like". "Yes, we'll be dumping huge quantities of chips and large logs on your precious monoculture, herbicide and pesticide treated over-fertilized lawn and convert it into an amazing fungi feeding adventure land for your kids, wildlife, and... your trees will be so happy they'll kiss you every morning, yep the truth".
-AJ
 
ATH said:
Interesting. I listened to the one of the ISA "Science of Arboriculture" podcasts (https://www.isa-arbor.com/Online-Learning/Podcasts/Podcast/7/Science-of-Arboriculture) about using Trichoderma to reduce wood decay fungi at branch wounds. He mentioned specific successes with Trichoderma atroviride as well.

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Schwarze had been looking into this as far as a commercially available wound innoculant. Haven't heard anymore about it in a while.
 
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