• Issy Kite

Last week, our team had the amazing opportunity to visit Windsor Great Park and see their amazing collection of ancient and veteran trees and collect some samples! The number of ancient trees was incredible to witness and we saw many signs of wood decay fungi on the oaks.

Rich showed all of us how to take a core sample out of the trees aseptically and then we tried it out for ourselves.

Many of the trees showed major signs of decay, like hollows. We were able to find a few mushrooms in the woodland area but were out of season to see a lot of the common fungi that would be present. We look forward to the summer and autumn months where hopefully we will find some better mushrooms to show!

Overall we had a great day learning on-site from the expertise of Rich and Lynne and look forward to returning in the future. Here we are analysing a fallen tree in an open, grassy area that showed many signs of wood decay and hollowing!

Photos: Issy Kite 2022