Hello,
I’ve just joined the list so thought I’d send a message to see how it works.
My name’s Ben, I studied arb at Merrist Wood form 2000 to 2002 and have
worked in few different countries doing mainly climber / crew leader /
estimator type work. I recently finished my ABC level 4 Diploma in Arb with
Tree Life AC in Syston and have starting providing consultancy services along
side the usual tree surgery stuff.
I have found there are so many Facebook groups and pages catering to tree
surgery / arborist discussion (slagging) but nothing for genuine
arboricultural discussion, so I hope I’ve found the right place here.
As i said, I’ve been working with trees for 15 years but only really started
in consultancy. My level 4 Arb course was amazing and gave me the next level
knowledge but offered very little i terms of recording tree data and
manipulating the data with software as to produce drawings etc. All of this I
have had to figure out myself, with very little online information available.
Because I’m self employed, and the tree surgery work still pays most of the
bills, I’ve had to build my methods of surveying on a boot string. This is
how I currently carry out surveys:
I bought a laser measuring tool from eBay for around £30. It is plenty
accurate enough for measuring crown spread and reasonable at measuring
height, providing you have a good high spot to bounce the laser off.
I use my iPad to input the data into a free app by GIScloud. The app requires
that you setup a free account and then allows you to build your forms. The
data can be collected offline and is then upload to ‘the cloud’ when you get
to wifi. It is a really robust system and allows you export the data as CSV.
I have a Garmin bluetooth GPS / GLANOSS receiver (£67) which links to the
iPad and allows coordinates to be attached to the tree data but it is not
accurate, so I either use the topo for tree position or bring out the old
paper and pen… this is the weak link in my system.
Once i have exported my CSV data I import it into KEYTree LT (£230 per 3
months or £1500 ish outright). This software includes a stand alone version
of Autocad and plots all of m crown spreads and RPAs, calculates my RPA
incursions and categorises my trees by colour as per BS5837. It took a few
hours, and lots of coffee, to get my head around but it is great as i can
concentrate on my report instead of my drawing.
I’m guessing that the above may be obvious to many of you, but it is a break
through for me, given the lack of info available online, and my slim budget.
Why is there so little info for arb constants? Is it because the industry is
so young or that we like to keep our methods to ourselves.
Anyway, that’s me, thanks for reading. I will happily take an advice or
feedback you can give. Or even if you wanted to drop me a message with a view
to sharing ideas and info in the future, that would be great.
Merry Christmas.
Ben
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