Fungal DNA Sampling

The relatively small size of the bits we use ensures rapid healing of the holes," says the website at http://nature.berkeley.edu/garbelotto/english/wddsampling.php

3/16" holes at the flare, 4 recommended.

How do these holes rapidly heal?

Ask the guy who wrote it.

Mr. Sir said:

Ask the guy who wrote it.

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Yup good idea to go to the source.

I left a msg and am waiting for a callback.

So they're using the DNA to identify fungi? Seems like running PCR for prospective fungi is a little excessive don't you think? It's not exactly new science either. I bet the closing of drill bit wounds is way low on their priority list, and they just wanted a reason to use general microbiology lab science for tree work.

... Sorry if I'm acting a little condescending, but you couldn't pay me to do the lab work for that. Talk about boring.... Easy money though if people start thinking it's the cat's meow.

Heal, compartmentalize...whateva'

jp

Wagnaw said:

Easy money though if people start thinking it's the cat's meow.

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$180 a pop if the pathogen is not on their list.

There is a market and yes it could grow.

Really? A $ 180 sounds cheap to me.

Wagnaw said:

.... Easy money though if people start thinking it's the cat's meow.

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For some situations is is.

When I bought the old house I've been remodeling for the past 15 years, I found some fungus that looked like Serpula Lacrymans.That scared the crap out of me, since this is the most destructive form of dry rot in buildings and if found, takes severe measures to remove/cure.
Any wood has to be cut back to at least 3 feet behind affected areas and treated with fungicides. Since I found fungal bodies in both floor substructure and roof construction, if it was S.L. the cheapest thing to do would have been to burn the house down and build a new one.

Imagine how I felt when I got the lab report ( which by the way, I paid them extra to expedite!!) saying that it was a close cousin, but not the actual SL.
The one I had is not very agressive and easily cured................whew!!

Serpula lacrymans comes from Himalaya and has supposedly been brought to England in a load of lumber, then it has spread to the rest of Europe.
In Sweden they are training dogs to find it by smell. Since you can insure your house against it, insurance companies pay the dogs ( or their owners) to check houses before insuring them.

Cool anecdote, thanks. Dogs to find decay fungi, like pigs finding truffles...

I can see the practical application of this in Stig's case and for lumber companies, forestry, etc. where decay fungi will affect the quality of the product. But how is this helpful in the urban forest? Do we really need to know the precise type of fungi in an urban setting and are customers willing to pay for this knowledge?

A lot of mine will pay for minimally invasive inspection to ID, but i have not yet sold this method to anyone. It sounds like it is geared to litigants. But there are several obvious challenges to its use in litigation, and serious problems with basing a case on the presence of fungus.

And the test does not determine the extent of infection or quantify structural integrity.

Mr. Sir said:

And the test does not determine the extent of infection or quantify structural integrity.

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Exactly. I've had a really hard time lately with the whole issue of deciding whether a tree that is host to a fungi is beyond hope of saving. As it seems, it's always the really pretty trees that have major decay going on.

Wagnaw said:

Exactly. I've had a really hard time lately with the whole issue of deciding whether a tree that is host to a fungi is beyond hope of saving.

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you and everyone else it seems.

keep endophytic fungi in mind--all trees are hosts to fungi!