Surveying for bleeding canker of horse chestnut

 

Before embarking on any control measures it is important to assess the number of affected trees, their location on the site and extent of the symptoms on individual trees.

To help decide the strategy for managing bleeding canker in affected areas, it is useful to have information on:

• Number of trees on site
• Mapped location of the trees
• Number of affected trees
• Circumference of affected trees (measured at breast height in cm) to give a guide on the age and size of each tree.
• Extent of the symptoms on each affected tree (number of bleeding lesions and extent of crown symptoms).
• Photographs of infected trees
• Additional information (eg other nearby tree species, ground disturbance).

Survey form

A survey form which includes all the above criteria is provided in PDF format below. This form can either be completed electronically or printed and completed by hand. See about the survey form below for important information about downloading the form.

Horse chestnut survey form ^(PDF-761K)

When using the form, symptoms such as extent of bleeding cankers on branches or trunk should be assessed on a 0-3 scale:

• 0 indicates no symptoms
• 1 indicates light symptom expression
• 2 indicates moderate symptom expression
• 3 indicates heavy symptom expression.

As part of the research effort into bleeding canker on horse chestnut we would be happy to receive electronic versions of any completed forms. The forms should be sent to bleedingcanker.survey@forestry.gsi.gov.uk.

About the survey form

The form is a PDF file with fields that you can enter information into electronically. You should save the completed form to your hard disk.

Due to known Adobe Reader issues, we recommend that you use Adobe Reader 5 or above to open the above form and with the 'Fast Web View' option disabled, or download the form to your hard disk and open it directly from there.

See problems with PDFs? for more information.