Arboriculture I

ONLINE ARBORICULTURE SHORT COURSE

Gain skills and knowledge to diagnose and treat tree disorders

A course for:

• People working in Tree Care or Tree Management
• People wanting to work with trees
• People wanting to start an arboricultural business

This course develops your skills and understanding in diagnosis and treatment of tree disorders, whether pests, diseases, nutritional or water problems, or something else. You learn about the standard tree surgery practices, to prune and train both young and established trees, and safety measures to follow.

• Learn to deal with pest, diseases, nutritional deficiences, water problems effectively.
• Save money with correct identification of tree disorder
• Improve your safety with correct tree surgery practices
• Increase produce with correct pruning and training procedures

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction To Arboriculture
   • Trees in the Garden
   • Planting in the Wrong place
   • Plant Selection
   • How to plant a tree
   • Planting Bare Rooted trees
   • Planting Advanced trees
   • Helping a Tree to get established
   • How to Transplant a Tree
   • Using Tree Guards
   • Undertaking a Tree Inspection and Completing a Report
2. Tree Biology
   • Tree Growth
   • Photosynthesis
   • Respiration
   • Transpiration
   • Vernilisation
   • Process of autumn foliage colour change
   • Tree Physiology; roots, stems, leabes, reproductive parts
   • How a tree grows
   • Secondary Growth
   • Growth Rings
   • Heartwood and Sapwood
   • Compartmentalisation; how a tree rots
   • Water and Plant Growth
   • Rate of Photosynthesis
   • Rate of Respiration
   • Environmental Factors Affecting Transpiration
   • Terminology
3. Soils In Relation To Trees
   • Soil and Tree Growth
   • Fertilizing Trees
   • Compacted Soils
   • Tree Health and Drainage
   • Treating Soil over Winter
   • Changing Soil Levels around Trees
   • Practical Tests; measuring soil characteristics
   • Soils in relation to Trees
   • Nutrition
   • Managing ph
   • Fertilizers
4. Diagnosing Tree Problems
   • Tree Disorders and Health
   • Frost Protection
   • Minimizing Wind Damage
   • Affects of mulch and watering on frost
   • Misletoe
   • Dealing with Problems
   • Diagnosing Tree Health Problems
   • Difficult to Diagnose Problems
   • Environmental Problems
   • Types of Disease: Blights, Canker, Galls, Leaf Spot, Mildew, Rots, Rust, Sooty Mould, Wilt etc
   • Types of Pests; Aphis, Beetles, Borerts, Bugs, Caterpillars, Leafhoppers, Mites, Nematodes, Termites, Thrip, Wasp, etc.
5. Tree Surgery
   • Is Tree Surgery Needed
   • Types of Surgery; cavity treatment, rods, cables etc
   • Tree Surgery Safety; for workers, for public
   • Cavity Treatments
   • Bracing and Cabling
   • Propping
   • Treating Bark Wounds
   • Removing Large Branches
   • Climbing Techniques
   • Preparing to Climb, How to Climb, Anchoring Point
   • Knots
6. Pruning Of Trees
   • Introduction
   • Branch Removal Method
   • Crown Cleaning, Thinning
   • Crown Reduction
   • Crown Lifting
   • Pruning Objectives
   • Fruit Tree Pruning
   • Removving Trees
   • Felling a Whole Tree
   • Felling in Sections
   • Terminology
7. Arboricultural Equipment
   • Introduction
   • Secateurs
   • Hand Saws
   • Power Tools, Safety with Electricity
   • Engine Troubleshooting; Dirty Spark Plugs
   • Tool Maintenance
   • Deciding what to Buy
   • Chain Saws
   • Hedge Trimmers
   • Climbing Equipment; ladder, harness, rope, belt, spurs, etc
8. Workplace Health and Safety
   • Duty of Care
   • Workplace Safety
   • Lifting and Manual Handling
   • Protective Equipment; personal protection, gloves, eyewear, hearing protection, skin Protection, knee protection, etc
   • Handling Tools and Machinery Safely
   • Safe Chain Saw Handling
   • Tool Maintenance
   • Auditing Tools

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Describe measures to provide healthy trees in different situations, including appropriate plant selection.
• Explain tree biology, including morphology, anatomy and physiology, as it relates to arboriculture.
• Develop procedures to manage soils for improved tree growth.
• Develop procedures for managing health disorders with trees, including environmental, pest and disease problems.
• Determine surgical techniques commonly used in arboriculture to repair damage to plants
• Explain tree surgery techniques commonly used in arboriculture to prune growth.
• Determine appropriate equipment for arboricultural practice.
• Determine appropriate workplace health and safety practices for an arboricultural workplace.

What You Will Do

• Distinguish between plants in order to identify at many different trees.
• Develop a standard tree report form, customised for surveying the condition and use of trees in your locality.
• Explain how to treat three specified soil related problems that can effect trees.
• Develop a twelve month program, for managing a health problem detected by you in an established tree.
• Demonstrate bridge grafting across a bark wound.
• Distinguish between different methods of pruning including:
  • Canopy reduction
  • Cleaning out
  • Topiary
  • Espaliering
• Determine the minimum equipment required to commence business as a tree surgeon.
• Compare different chainsaws, to determine appropriate applications for each.
• Determine legislation which is relevant to a specific arborist in a workplace which you visit.

Extract from Course Notes:

THE ARBORIST’S EQUIPMENT

An extensive knowledge of the types of equipment used by the professional arborist is essential to run a successful business. This includes personal protection equipment as well as that designed for specialised tree maintenance.

Costs involved in the purchase of this equipment can range from inexpensive items such as pruners to large capital outlay for a mulcher and stump grinder, so before starting a business in this field it is important to research the type of equipment available as well as the expected financial outlay.

The essentials for any tree work, even a very small job, will be a good pair of secateurs and a hand saw.

Secateurs

These are hand‑held cutting implements which cut when the handles are squeezed, and spring open when released. There are two main types:

• Scissor cut ‑ where the cutting action is achieved by two blades shearing past each other. The scissor cut is clean and doesn't bruise the plant provided the tool is kept in condition.
• Anvil cut ‑ where a sharp blade comes straight down on a flat (anvil) surface. This type generally cuts more easily than the scissor type but can bruise or tear if the blade is not kept very sharp.

How to Cut

All cuts should be made at a sharp angle in relation to the ground plane. This prevents water from collecting on the cut surface, thus reducing the likelihood of disease problems. Where possible, cuts should be made just above a node (where the leaves and/or flower stems are, or have been, attached to the plant stem). This reduces the likelihood of dieback along the stem. It is also important to only cut material that is not too thick for the secateurs (ideally no more than 1‑1.5 cm depending on the secateurs), otherwise you will find the cutting to be a strain on both the secateurs and yourself, and the final cut is likely to be rough, torn or uneven. For larger branches use long‑handled pruners, which are similar to heavy duty secateurs with handles usually 45‑60 cm long, or a pruning saw. When using anvil secateurs - always cut down onto the anvil.

Maintenance of Secateurs

• Regularly oil moving parts, such as the spring.
• Wipe any parts susceptible to rusting (such as the blade) with an oily rag.
• Sharpen the cutting blade regularly with a sharpening stone:
  • on anvil types the blade should be sharpened on both sides.
  • on scissor cut types, the blade should only ever be sharpened on one side (ie. the outer edge - the side which is furthest away from the other blade when a cut is made).

Hand Saws

Pruning saws ‑ These generally have teeth designed to cut moist living timber; the teeth being generally larger than those on saws used for cutting furniture or construction timber. There are two types of pruning saws:

• Straight blade which allows variation in the type of cut according to the type and size of the material being cut.
• Curved blade with teeth on one side. This curved saw is generally used by the experts because the curved blade allows access to restricted areas such as near closely interlocking branches.
• Bow saws ‑These are, as the name implies, bow shaped. These saws are light weight, easy to use, have replaceable blades, and coarse teeth which provide a fast cut when the blades are in good condition. This type of saw is popular for pruning branches that are too thick for the light pruning saws.
• Carpenters saws ‑There is great variation in the types of saws used in carpentry work. Generally they have finer teeth compared to the pruning and bow saws and these are generally set to give a narrower cut. This is because they are mainly used for cutting processed timber (ie. dried, milled, heat pressed and treated, etc) where a narrower, finer cut, in comparison to pruning cuts, is required. These saws are predominantly straight‑edged with teeth only on one edge of the saw.

Simple Rules When Using Hand Saws

• Always keep the saw sharp. This makes cutting easier and gives a cleaner cut.
• Make sure you are only cutting timber. This applies particularly when cutting second hand timber which may contain old nails etc, and cutting in situations where the saw may come into contact with soils, gravels or other materials that are likely to damage the saws cutting edge.
• Always store the saws in a safe place and keep them clean. The saws may be readily damaged if dropped or banged against other materials. They will quickly rust if allowed to stay moist. Incorrectly stored saws may also be a safety risk, particularly if you have children and animals.
• Use the right saw for the job at hand. This will make the task easier for you and produce a better quality job.

POWER TOOLS

Power tools are essential when working with trees; without them, work would be inefficient and, in today’s world, unprofitable. Power equipment does, however, bring risks and other potential problems (eg. breakdowns) along with the benefits.

FREQUENT QUESTIONS

Why Choose This Course

• Unique course materials (developed by our staff) and more current than some colleges (many reviewed annually); as a result, ACS graduates can be more up to date.
• We work hard to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field (It’s more than just serving up a collection of information –if all you want is information, buy a book; but if you want an education, that takes learning to a whole new level).
• Start whenever you want, study at your own pace, study anywhere
• Don’t waste time and money traveling classes
• We provide more choices–courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you; a huge range of elective subjects are offered that don’t exist elsewhere.
• Tutors are accessible (more than elsewhere) – academics work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. Answering emails and phone calls from students are top priority.
• We treat students as individuals –don’t get lost in a crowd. Our tutors communicate with you one to one.
• Extra help at no extra cost if needed. When you find something you cannot do, we help you through it or will provide another option.
• Support after you finish a course –We can advise about getting work, starting  business, writing a CV, etc. We can promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Graduates who ask will be helped.
• Support from a team of a dozen professional horticulturists, living in different parts of the UK, and in both temperate and tropical climate zones of Australia.

About ACS

ACS was started in 1979 by John Mason, who at the time was a gardening author, horticultural consultant and lecturer in horticulture at several colleges across Melbourne (in Australia).  Over the summer that year John discovered that there were thousands of applicants going to be turned away from horticulture courses at Burnley Horticultural College (now Melbourne University). There were simply too few courses being offered for the number of people wanting to study horticulture in Australia. This situation prompted a move to establish a correspondence course at Burnley; but after months of unsuccessful lobbying for support from government; John wrote a course, and with help from a colleague at Council of Adult Education, marketed it.

Standards were originally set in line with what were seen to be the standards of Australia's top horticultural college; and over the years, those standards have never been reduced. This makes our courses longer and more demanding than some other colleges; but it has also led to us building a credibility that stands tall in the horticulture industry across the world. 

In the early 1990's John started visiting the UK and becoming involved with the horticulture industry there. Around the mid 1990's ACS began offering RHS courses, and in 2003, John was formally recognised for his contribution to British Horticulture by being made a fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. ACS, as a school, established an office and staff in the UK in 2001, and has expanded considerably since then. Today it is formally affiliated with five other colleges in the UK (including Warwickshire College); all of who license and deliver ACS courses. 

A team of leading horticulturists work for the school's horticulture department, including 12 faculty members in both the UK and Australia

How You Study

• As soon as you enroll, we send an email to explain it all.
• We direct you to a short orientation video (downloadable over the internet) to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
• You are either given a code to access your course online, or sent out a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
• Work through lessons one by one, each lesson typically having four parts:
• An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
• Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
• Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
• Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
• Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
• We provide access to and encourage you to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
• We provide a "student manual", that is a quick solution to most problems that might occur

Recognition

• ACS has a highly respected international profile: by employers and academics alike. People are more aware of us than many other distance education schools –just do a search for “horticulture distance education courses” and see what comes up on the internet; or search for ACS Distance education on Facebook or Linked in, and see how many connections we have compared to other colleges.
• Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
• ACS has been educating people around the world since 1979
• Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
• Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
• A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.

Extra Books or Reference Materials

• The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
• Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
• Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month. See www.acsebook.com

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