[IUFRO RG 7.02 FORPATH] Preventing infection after coring trees

Greetings Forpathers- We are about to embark on a very large project that will entail coring a large number (a couple thousand) tropical rainforest trees to look at fungi decaying the insides of the trees. The trees are part of a long-term study, and there is significant (and reasonable) concern that we do no harm to the trees that might speed their demise. As such, there are very strong opinions about what we should do to the holes after we remove the cores. As the pathologist on the project, it is my responsibility to provide a clear, evidence-based rationale for what we do, and I'm seeking Forpath advice on the latest (preferably with published studies). I know there is plenty out there about not tarring or painting pruning wounds. I have a rather old publication on wound healing of cores in tropical trees that showed pretty rapid sealing of drill wounds (through a variety of mechanisms) (Gilbert and Guariguata 1996 Biotropica 28: 23-29). But I'm not finding much empirical work out there on what should best be done to handle deep wounds like trunk cores on trees. Any advice -- your personal observations, citations, rationale for different approaches - would be greatly appreciated. What would you do to protect trees from infection after coring? Thanks very much, Greg ************************************************************************************************************************* Gregory S. Gilbert, Ph.D. Director, SCWIBLES GK-12 Training Program Professor and Pepper-Giberson Chair tel: (831) 459-5002 http://scwibles.ucsc.edu Environmental Studies fax: (831) 459-4015 Co-Director, CenTREAD 1156 High St. ggilbert(a)ucsc.edu http://centread.ucsc.edu University of California Research Group Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA http://people.ucsc.edu/~ggilbert Si no usas la cabeza, alguien por ti la va a abusar. Rubén Blades *************************************************************************************************************************