Services / Investigation and diagnostics
Specialist service
Find out what is actually wrong with the tree.
Many tree questions cannot be answered on the surface. Where the roots run, whether the trunk is hollow, and what is killing the canopy. We get these investigated properly, working with specialist partners who have the equipment, so the answer rests on a measurement rather than an assumption.
Why it matters
Assumption is where reports are challenged
A lot of tree decisions are guesses dressed up as judgments. A protection zone is drawn as a neat circle and the roots are assumed to sit inside it. A tree is called sound because the outside looks fine. A failing canopy is called diseased without ever naming the cause. Each of those is a guess, and a guess is what gets pulled apart on review or at VCAT.
We test instead. Where roots matter, a non-destructive investigation exposes them without cutting them and maps where they actually run. Where the question is internal decay, it gets measured, not eyeballed. Where a pest or disease is suspected, it is identified before anyone recommends what to do about it.
We do not own this equipment, and we do not pretend to. We work with specialist diagnostic partners who do, scope the right test for the question, and interpret the result for your site. The investigation is one part; knowing what it means for the protection zone, the risk rating or the retention call is the part that takes an arborist.
How it works
The right test for the question
Testing for its own sake wastes money. We start with the decision that the result has to inform, pick the method that answers it, and write the finding so it drives that decision.
Before any testing
Define the question
What decision does the result have to support: a setback near roots, a retain-or-remove call, or a treatment? The question sets the method. We will also tell you when a test is not worth running.
On site
The right test
Roots, trunk or pathogen, there is a method for it, and we bring in the right one: non-destructive root investigation for where roots run, Resistograph or Sonic Tomography for internal decay, and sampling and diagnosis for pests and disease.
In the report
An answer tied to a decision
The finding is written so that it drives the decision, which was for: where the protection zone should actually sit, whether the tree is sound enough to keep, and what the treatment is. Evidence that leads somewhere, not a list of data without advice.
Why our work can be relied on
Measured, not assumed
A diagnostic is only worth running if it changes what you do and withstands questioning.
The right specialist, scoped by us
We do not own the equipment; we work with specialist partners who do. Our job is to scope the right investigation and interpret the result, so the test answers the question it was set to answer.
Evidence, not assumption
The roots are found, the decay is measured, the pathogen is named. Nothing in the report rests on a guess about what is under the ground or inside the trunk.
It feeds the decision
The finding connects straight to the protection zone, the risk rating or the retention call. A test that changes nothing was not worth doing.
Related services
Often needed alongside
Not sure what is going on with a tree?
Tell us what you are seeing and what the decision hangs on. We will tell you which test answers it, or whether you need one at all.
Discuss your tree