10/14/2026
Sometimes pre-climb inspections aren’t just about worker safety but are about what makes sense. The majority of this old stump was covered in mulch and unremarkable during the estimate for some pruning work. This particular decay fungi only really produces fruiting bodies (mushrooms) in the late summer and early fall. They can easily become kicked or dislodged so go unnoticed. To make everything more complicated the fungi isn’t always pathological but can just be digesting dead wood on or underground.
Also this illustrates another fun fact, Douglas when growing near each other tend to ‘graft’ their roots together making either more resilient. Enter people and site development and one gets cut down, the other tree will try to compartmentalize the stump, in an attempt to callus over it and the removed trees roots stay alive from the underground graft.
This can also be an Achilles heal when infected with a root rot or other pathogen.
Some simple investigation and heal pivoting, we aborted the pruning work, the informed the client, and will be returning to measure the volume of decay. Either recommending risk reduction, supportive care or removal. Not all problems can be fixed with a chainsaw, when your only tool is a hammer, all problems are nails. Knowledge and experience is a much bigger tool in arboriculture than cutting bits of the tree off.
