Holy shit, those are huge for 2 years old (at least in my neck of the woods, where we have winter). Those look like 5-7 year old trees around here.
I’m surprised the grass didn’t choke them out, but given how fast they grew it makes sense. Usually, here, grass competition is a huge issue for woody spp
The majority of visible trees (bar the Melaleuca he mentions) are Acacia and Eucalypt, the 2 fastest growing trees in Australia. Not to mention the La Nina. I did read a study once where it was theorised that Eucs aren’t pioneers, they are hyperpioneers. Hyper meaning “wow, that’s fast” in scientific terms.
In regards to grass competition, what he has done there wouldn’t fly in the Aus sub/tropics, exotic grass and vine growth would have pulled most of them down. But in relation to what he is illustrating with 24 hours of work and then hands off forever, it’s certainly demonstrating how easy it is to make a tangible difference.
Yeah I was wondering about the weeds myself. He’s got a great climate for growing trees granted, and it seems like he selected his site and species thoughtfully. So I accept that irrigation wasn’t necessary even though nothing grows in my area without that. But in most areas the weeds will swallow anything unless controlled. I’m surprised he didn’t have a bigger issue with that.
Since the drone shot is very gappy, I think the grass is swallowing a large number of species. He stated himself 25% loss which is beyond acceptable for commercial plantings and most contracts would require an in-fill. If he maintained it, would it have been higher? We can’t tell. He is obviously only shooting the best parts of the site too (which is fair enough).
Like you say, species and site selection may be helping, not to mention the consortium of weeds present may be less damaging than other sites. Not taking away from the effort but as we all know, planting the trees is 10% of the work usually.
Plus, I hate to say it, but just planting tall “trees” is not a forest. There are a number of other species missing from the planting. If the plan was to insert more species once the grass was suppressed then maybe it would hit “forest” status but being in an open paddock like that, natural recruitment is not going to be high. We have to remember that this is YouTube content, not high quality ecological restoration.
Yeah I agree with all that, I just expected way worse outcome with just popping the trees in the ground in a rushed manner and then leaving for 2 years. In my area you would be lucky if a single tree made it from that. I’ve seen sites have much lower survival even with considerable follow up care.
At my old org we usually saw about 70-80% survival after two years with some level of care. Admittedly that’s in an urban area where a lot more things can go wrong, and most of the tree care was done by poorly trained property owners, so not exactly comparable to your type of project.
Environmental conditions (rainfall) will have a massive impact on survival rates here, so much so it blows my mind that the entire industry doesn’t mobilise around the rain systems like La Nina and Indian dipole.
You can lose species (including the massive nursery effort/footprint) and increase replanting in the dry or just work around the rain with some light maintenance. I think the busywork keeps planting going each year rather than rapid gluts of planting around conditions. It’s a waste of resources but it is what it is. We have just had record dry conditions and high temps and our company did quite a number of plantings because “grants need to be acquitted”. It’s so dumb. Planting into dust is demoralising.
For reference, my planting since the damaging floods is at 98% survival. The floods removing a significant amount but it’s still only about 4% at planting completion. At the time, it was like 85% of 100 plants.
At least in my area precipitation is not predictable enough to rely on that way. We try to time our plantings with the rainy season but predicting which year will be wetter if dryer than average is more or less impossible. Last year was expected to be dry but it was very wet. This year is projected to be wet but so far has been dry. Long range models aren’t good enough to stake your project success on.
Plus, as you say, it would be difficult to maintain professional staff around working only once every few years. Such a system would be totally lacking in expertise and would also create much inferior working conditions. If the rains don’t come, you need to irrigate more. That’s just how it is and I don’t see a way around it.
I’m not sure I understand the breakdown of numbers there. Are you counting replants in your survival there? I would not include those because they are of a different age cohort unless planted shortly after the original trees. My number doesn’t include replacements.
I am but one person with a full time job and a “charity” business I run on the side. We have about 4 months of wet weather to plant in on a good year.
The planting has 3000 plants total, 95% grown by me in nursery. I’m not speedspading as I have to hoe out grass as I go (chemical free site) so I tend to plant approx 50-100 per afternoon I devote to it. 30-60 afternoons say. In one weekend, a flood ripped through and ripped out some oldish ones and a lot of young but I wasn’t finished the site so I just replaced and kept working.
If I exclude that event, I can only visualise a few deaths across the entire planting. Failure to thrives aren’t included. That’s with zero watering but watering in at planting time.
Here is a tree that is 12 months old but the earliest part of site is now 2 years old. The youngest is but a few weeks:
At work we did a planting that had 2 deaths out of 2000; wet years it’s easy to keep the numbers high, you have to fuck it up to do otherwise.
Plus, I hate to say it, but just planting tall “trees” is not a forest.
You and me both. You probably saw my rant on that the other day though about C offsets.
The whole ‘plant our way out of a climate cridis’ method lends itself to monoculture rather than a robust ecosystem
Also, good to see you again, friend.
Yeppers. Trees aren’t going to cut it but if we ignore the climate crisis aspect, then trees are still worth it. But the definition of trees and forest is confusing. I’m lost already.
I’m still around, just nothing to say. Hope you’re keeping well. I even had some content for you saved on my phone; if you watch Ukraine/Russia war footage, the trench systems have some interesting profiles in amongst the horror.
Post your content, if it’s not too graphic.
Those are chernozems out there likely. Deep topsoil 60+ cm easily
There are a lot of varied trenches/trench depths and soil profiles as they aren’t shoring the edges. If one was so inclined to look.
Some beautiful soils, I can see why it’s farming-centric.
Excellent. Thank you.
Interestingly, my large planting I did myself just hit 2 years old as well. It didn’t occur to me at the time when first watching but we planted at similar times, me being in November (early humid Summer due to La Nina).
Will be interesting to compare in that regard. We are getting record low rainfall here immediately after record high so my planting is acting a little strange. Hopefully Beau’s doesn’t get burnt with all that long grass and that climate.
Beau is an absolute gem.
