Native
plant nursery at Mt Best
Baby trees in our nursery
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Our reforestation efforts are not limited to direct
seeding, mainly because germination rates of some trees are quite
poor in a depleted environment in which no suitable forest ecosystem
is initially present.
One of our current challenges is germination of eucalyptus regnans
seeds. Apparently, everyone has this problem to one degree or
another.
Eucalyptus regnans, called also mountain ash, is the tallest hardwood
tree in the world, but its seed is so tiny that looks like a speck
of dust and can be seen with a naked eye only on a good bright
backgound.
In order to overcome germination difficulties and speed up the
process we constructed a thermostat-controlled germinator in which
the temperature is controlled to within 1 degree Celsius.
Our preliminary results indicate that eucalyptus regnans seeds
germinate quite fast (within 7 days) when they are in the moist
environment in which the temperature is kept between 28-30 degrees
Celsius.
As soon as seedlings germinate they are moved to the baby-tree
nursery depicted above, where they are watered automatically with
rainwater before sunrise and after sunset to minimize the water
evaporation and waste.
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