Ezytreev in action: A day in the field with Bernice McGrail – Senior Tree Officer

Managing thousands of trees across a borough is no small task — but for Bernice McGrail and her team at Test Valley, Ezytreev helps keep it all running smoothly. In this field-based interview with Amelia Williams, Bernice shares how they use the platform — from planning surveys to logging work history — all from the tablet, right there in the field.

“I have been using Ezytreev for over 7 years now, currently in my role as Senior Arboricultural Officer at Test Valley Borough Council and previously at New Forest District Council as a Corporate Tree Officer. I find the best feature of Ezytreev is the functionality and use for on-site tree surveys using the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8. The ease with which you can plot new trees, groups and woodlands, as well as relocate trees and recall each tree’s individual work history, is excellent.

I tend to use it primarily for carrying out our routine planned tree surveys to meet the local authority’s duty of care in relation to tree ownership as well as for proposed tree planting schemes and organising the watering and young tree maintenance. There are two of us responsible for tree management full-time, so we operate two surveying licences and one desktop licence currently, and the smart sync allows us to update the Ezytreev database remotely with ease.

It is a great tool for information gathering about a tree stock in addition to being a useful method of storing large quantities of data about each individual tree to build a specific management plan per tree to aid with proactive tree management.

We use the tablet tree surveying module as well as the desktop tree inventory, budget and tree work ordering modules. Our tree work contractors also use Ezytreev for receiving tree work orders and updating the completed works and uploading before and after photographs of the tree work.

In terms of wider functionality, I use Ezytreev to generate tree-related reports for in-house projects, for example, car park refurbishments, as well as to aid with guiding other teams like our countryside team on tree management for their specific nature reserves.

I am keen to explore the new developments that Ezytreev has been working on, including the new web-based version for tree surveying and the works ordering. I will need time to learn the new system, and the support team is great in providing technical support and training for this and has been very helpful during my time using Ezytreev.”

A big thank you to Bernice McGrail for sharing her time and insights — and to Amelia Williams for making this conversation possible. Amelia is the founder of The Arboricultural Company, a trusted consultant, mentor, and a valued friend of the Ezytreev team.

See how our mobile tools work in the field. Take a closer look at Ezytreev’s surveying features.