This week one of the landholders participating in our Biodiversity Fund project sent me the following snippet from his observations on tree planting success at his property near Bathurst in the Central Tablelands of NSW. If we could all take the time to record and question our patterns of observation I think we could all learn a lot more.

Last year they planted 10 different blocks of trees and shrubs and have reported on some monitoring of tubestock survival at 9 of these blocks.

7 blocks of these trees and shrubs were planted without using guards or weed mats totalling 2548 plants. We re sprayed and counted surviving plants recently only 32% left only or only 809 alive out of the 2548 planted.    :(

At another site 840 tube stock were planted and all were all guarded and most (740) had weed mats put down as well -  the survival rate in the block with weed mats was 91%. The one hundred that had no weed mats had a reduced survival rate off 61% witch was still better than any off the other sites that had no guards or mats.  The average survival for this site was 71% or 596 out of 840 plants planted.

WHY these patterns?  In all blocks I think a few are reshooting from base after they were set back by frost in November and 40 degree day two days later. The 7 sites with low survival had 1700 wattles that kangaroos seem to love to eat.

The 10th site was a replanting in previously sown block but the survival rate for it has not been counted so far.

What tree planting observations have you got to share in the Central Tablelands - can you please share so that we can all benefit from the knowledge / observations that are already in our district. Send your observation to Marita Sydes, Landcare Coordinator for Central Tablelands Landcare.