Here's the new VALID Likelihood of Failure voting card for v2 of the Tree Risk App, which is in development.

If it's new to you, VALID (from where we get our name) gives you 5 chapter headings and 15 subheadings, that can affect a tree's Likelihood of Failure.

When you're carrying out a tree risk assessment, and have got to the tough Likelihood of Failure decision, VALID gives you a structure that guides through the factors you should consider.

At its simplest level, VALID is a checklist of things to think about and you're welcome to this voting card we use in training.

The most important change is:

DEFECT to DECAY
We'll finally be rid of any mention of the red DEFECT word in VALID's publications. Those of you who have been there from the beginning will know this has been a quest for some time.

The first subheading under DEFECT is section modulus. That's because if you don't have a grasp of section modulus, and are relying on t/R ratios, you can't make a reasonable decision about the significance of strength loss from decay.

If you're not a Validator, who's been trained to use the Tree Risk App, here's their guide on how they go about using the current version to get to a base rate colour. You should get a sense about how this elegant and sophisticated approach helps you with your likelihood of failure decision making from this.

Likelihood of Failure | Decision Making

Day 2 of Validator tree risk training is all about making robust Likelihood of Failure decisions. If you follow this guide, it's really difficult to get it wrong. If anyone tries to game the risk to get it where they want it to be, it's really obvious where they've got it wrong, and that's what they've done.