Plant Appraisal Estimate, Scope, Data, Analysis, Reconciliation, Report

Summary: Six systematic plant appraisal process steps address problems; scope; data collection, analysis and reconciliation; and assignment result reports.

Amount of canopy is one method for appraising plant values; view of canopy cover in Manhattan's Central Park; July 21, 2017: FEMA/Kenneth Wilsey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The article The Plant Appraisal Process in the Arborist News February 2019 issue arrives at assignment results of costs or values by assembling into six systematic steps qualitative judgment and quantitative analysis.

The Council of Tree & Landscape Appraisers, authors of Core Concepts of Plant Appraisal in the Arborist News December 2018 issue, begins with scope of work. The plant appraisal process calls upon plant appraisers to come up with impartial, independent, objective assignment results of costs or values without discrimination or personal interest. Plant appraisers discern among the intended users of the plant appraisal information delivered in their last-step report such entities and persons as attorneys, municipalities and neighbors.

Plant appraisals of trees extracted without owner consent, for example, establish property values for insurance claims, municipal tree ordinance violation fines, tax-deductible losses and replacement costs.

The plant appraisal process furnishes maximum creditability by fitting intended use, such as estimated costs for restoration, replacement for superadequacy and sales comparison for market value.

The plant appraisal process gathers such estimates as clean-up, debris dispersal, demolition, monitoring, permits, repair and, depreciating benefit, function or utility or not, replacement or reproduction. It has as value estimates of landscape items contributory market value, current commodity market value, present value of future benefits, public interest values and statutory value. The cost or value estimate that is identified in the plant appraisal process is unrelated to the statutory value that is indicated by regulation or statute.

Statutory value of landscape elements and items juggles such calculations as amount of canopy, number of trees, square footage of cleared areas and trunk cross-sectional areas.

The plant appraisal process keeps current, prospective and retrospective appraisals respectively for overlapping effective dates and market conditions or property inspections; future dates; and pre-inspection dates.

The plant appraisal process looks at appraised objects as permanently personal or temporarily landscaped real property; and by commercial-site, park, residential, urban-street, vacant-lot or woodland use. Assignment- and report-specific assumptions and constraints maintain aerial-imaged, distant-viewed, indirect-access, owner-represented data; litigation recusal of form suppliers and plant appraisers; and unverifiable, presumably accurate third-party estimates. Extraordinary assumptions, such as of reasonable health before tree damage or stump diameter at breast height before tree removal, if subsequently negated, negate plant appraisal results.

The plant appraisal process offers for comparative, creditable, reasonable analysis and legal purposes hypothetical conditions, such as reproduction estimates without depreciation deductions from poor pre-damage condition.

Scope of work pitches appraisal problem identification; inspections; research; plant appraisal process approaches, methods and techniques; assumptions and constraints; due-dates; and price estimates and payment schedules.

Appellate rulings, attorney and client interviews, best and highest property use, contractual language, ordinances, overall property value and statutes qualify as litigation-related, not reproduction cost-related, research. The fourth plant appraisal process step realizes cost, income and sales comparison approaches for equivalent-cost repair, replacement or reproduction; expected benefits; and comparable property sale prices. Appraiser experience, expertise and judgment supply assignment results through reconciliation of plant appraisal process approach, method and technique with analysis subjectivity, approach relevance and data quality.

The last plant appraisal process step treats oral reports with substantiating notes and written reports in full or as summaries of key elements in assignment results.

The U.S. Forest Service's free, state-of-the-art, peer-reviewed i-Tree software suite includes i-Tree Eco, a useful program in the plant appraisal process; "How Eco Works": i-Tree Eco v6 Fact Sheet, via i-Tree

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to:
talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet;
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

Image credits:

Amount of canopy is one method for appraising plant values; view of canopy cover in Manhattan's Central Park; July 21, 2017: FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)/Kenneth Wilsey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20170721_Gotham_Shield_NYC_Aerials-225_medium.jpg

The U.S. Forest Service's free, state-of-the-art, peer-reviewed i-Tree software suite includes i-Tree Eco, a useful program in the plant appraisal process; "How Eco Works": i-Tree Eco v6 Fact Sheet, via i-Tree @ https://www.itreetools.org/resources/content/Eco_factsheet.pdf

For further information:

The Council of Tree & Landscape Appraisers. February 2019. "The Plant Appraisal Process." Arborist News 28(1): 12-17.

Gilman, Ed. 2011. An Illustrated Guide to Pruning. Third Edition. Boston MA: Cengage.

Hayes, Ed. 2001. Evaluating Tree Defects. Revised, Special Edition. Rochester MN: Safe Trees.

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2019/01/urban-tree-vulnerability-in-residential.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 30 December 2018. "Plant Appraisal: Cost and Value Estimates and Economic Principles." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/12/plant-appraisal-cost-and-value.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 23 December 2018. "Six-Year Forest Health Ambassador Program of Oakville, Ontario, Canada." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/12/six-year-forest-health-ambassador.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/nursery-production-systems-tough-urban.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 16 September 2018. "Induced-Resistance Agents, Silicon Fertilizers, Synthetic Fungicides." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/09/induced-resistance-agents-silicon.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 26 August 2018. "Nursery Production Systems for Successful Urban Tree Plantings." Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/08/nursery-production-systems-for.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/06/root-loss-from-root-pruning-and-root.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 27 May 2017. “Age and Canopy Area Cost Less and Tell More in Urban Tree Inventories.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/05/age-and-canopy-area-cost-less-and-tell.html

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Marriner, Derdriu. 12 March 2017. “Flexural Elasticity Modulus: Trees and Watersprouts Bend or Break.” Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/03/flexural-elasticity-modulus-trees-and.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 February 2017. “Plant Health Care Diagnostics When Plants and Places Wrong One Another.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/02/plant-health-care-diagnostics-when.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/01/tree-fertilization-for-fine-root-growth.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 17 December 2016. “Abiotic and Biotic Stress in Low Maintenance Tree Health Care Programs.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/12/abiotic-and-biotic-stress-in-low.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 19 November 2016. “Organic Amendments to Compacted Degraded Urban Highway Roadsides.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/11/organic-amendments-to-compacted.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 October 2016. “Tree Protection Zones by Arborists for All Construction Project Phases.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/10/tree-protection-zones-by-arborists-for.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 17 September 2016. “Stormwater Runoff Landscaping With Urban Canopy Cover and Groundcover.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/09/stormwater-runoff-landscaping-with.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 August 2016. “Changing Places: Tree Nutrient Movement Down, Tree Water Movement Up.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/08/changing-places-tree-nutrient-movement.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 16 July 2016. “Treated or Untreated Oriental Bittersweet Vine Management Cut-Stumping.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/07/treated-or-untreated-oriental.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 June 2016. “Tree Injection Site Procedures: Manufacturer's Instructions and Labels.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/06/tree-injection-site-procedures.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 22 May 2016. “Electrical Utility Area Temperate Urban Street Trees: Pruned Regrowth.” Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/05/electrical-utility-area-temperate-urban.html

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/04/tree-injection-methods-treatment-option.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 6 March 2016. “Bare-Rooted Ornamental Urban Transplants: Amendments Against Mortality.” Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/03/bare-rooted-ornamental-urban.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 28 February 2016. “Bark Protective Survival Mechanisms Foil Deprivation, Injury, Invasion.” Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/02/bark-protective-survival-mechanisms.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 23 January 2016. "LITA Model: Linear Index of Tree Appraisal of Large Urban Swedish Trees." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/01/lita-model-linear-index-of-tree.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 19 December 2015. “Tree Lightning Protection Systems: Site, Soil, Species True Designs.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/12/tree-lightning-protection-systems-site.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 24 October 2015. “Tree Lightning Protection Systems Tailored to Sites, Soils, Species.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/10/tree-lightning-protection-systems.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 August 2015. “Tree Friendly Urban Soil Management: Amend, Fertilize, Mulch, Till!” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/08/tree-friendly-urban-soil-management.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 June 2015. “Tree Friendly Urban Soil Management: Assemble, Assess, Assist, Astound.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/06/tree-friendly-urban-soil-management.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 April 2015. “Tree Wound Responses: Healthy Wound Closures by Callus and Woundwood.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/04/tree-wound-responses-healthy-wound.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 February 2015. “Urban Forest Maintenance and Non-Maintenance Costs and Benefits.” Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/02/urban-forest-maintenance-and-non.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 December 2014. “Tree Dwelling Symbionts: Dodder, Lichen, Mistletoe, Moss and Woe-Vine.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/12/tree-dwelling-symbionts-dodder-lichen.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 October 2014. “Tree Cable Installation Systems Lessen Target Impact From Tree Failure.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/10/tree-cable-installation-systems-lessen.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 16 August 2014. “Flood Tolerant Trees in Worst-Case Floodplain and Urbanized Scenarios.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/08/flood-tolerant-trees-in-worst-case.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 June 2014. “Integrated Vegetation Management of Plants in Utility Rights-of-Way.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/06/integrated-vegetation-management-of.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 April 2014. “Tree Twig Identification: Buds, Bundle Scars, Leaf Drops, Leaf Scars.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/04/tree-twig-identification-buds-bundle.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 February 2014. “Tree Twig Anatomy: Ecosystem Stress, Growth Rates, Winter Identification.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2014/02/tree-twig-anatomy-ecosystem-stress.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 December 2013. “Community and Tree Safety Awareness During Line- and Road-Clearances.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/12/community-and-tree-safety-awareness.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 October 2013. “Chain-Saw Gear and Tree Work Related Personal Protective Equipment.” Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/chain-saw-gear-and-tree-work-related.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 October 2013. “Storm Damaged Tree Clearances: Matched Teamwork of People to Equipment.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/storm-damaged-tree-clearances-matched.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 17 August 2013. “Storm Induced Tree Damage Assessments: Pre-Storm Planned Preparedness.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/08/storm-induced-tree-damage-assessments.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 June 2013. “Storm Induced Tree Failures From Heavy Tree Weights and Weather Loads.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/06/storm-induced-tree-failures-from-heavy.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 April 2013. “Urban Tree Root Management Concerns: Defects, Digs, Dirt, Disturbance.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/04/urban-tree-root-management-concerns.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 16 February 2013. “Tree Friendly Beneficial Soil Microbes: Inoculations and Occurrences.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/02/tree-friendly-beneficial-soil-microbes.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 December 2012. “Healthy Urban Tree Root Crown Balances: Soil Properties, Soil Volumes.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/12/healthy-urban-tree-root-crown-balances.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 October 2012. “Tree Adaptive Growth: Tree Risk Assessment of Tree Failure, Tree Strength.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/10/tree-adaptive-growth-tree-risk.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 August 2012. “Tree Risk Assessment Mitigation Reports: Tree Removal, Tree Retention?” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/08/tree-risk-assessment-mitigation-reports.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 16 June 2012. “Internally Stressed, Response Growing, Wind Loaded Tree Strength.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/06/internally-stressed-response-growing.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 April 2012. “Three Tree Risk Assessment Levels: Limited Visual, Basic and Advanced.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/04/three-tree-risk-assessment-levels.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 19 February 2012. “Qualitative Tree Risk Assessment: Risk Ratings for Targets and Trees.” Earth and Space News. Sunday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/02/qualitative-tree-risk-assessment-risk.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 February 2012. “Qualitative Tree Risk Assessment: Falling Trees Impacting Targets.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/02/qualitative-tree-risk-assessment.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 10 December 2011. “Tree Risk Assessment: Tree Failures From Defects and From Wind Loads.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/12/tree-risk-assessment-tree-failures-from.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 October 2011. “Five Tree Felling Plan Steps for Successful Removals and Worker Safety.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/10/five-tree-felling-plan-steps-for.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 13 August 2011. “Natives and Non-Natives as Successfully Urbanized Plant Species.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/08/natives-and-non-natives-as-successfully.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 June 2011. “Tree Ring Patterns for Ecosystem Ages, Dates, Health and Stress.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/06/tree-ring-patterns-for-ecosystem-ages.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 9 April 2011. “Benignly Ugly Tree Disorders: Oak Galls, Powdery Mildew, Sooty Mold, Tar Spot.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/04/benignly-ugly-tree-disorders-oak-galls.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 12 February 2011. “Tree Load Can Turn Tree Health Into Tree Failure or Tree Fatigue.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/02/tree-load-can-turn-tree-health-into.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 December 2010. “Tree Electrical Safety Knowledge, Precautions, Risks and Standards.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2010/12/tree-electrical-safety-knowledge.html