Forestry Field Trip #1

My first forestry field trip was on Saturday. The field trip was quite cool although I'm a bit frustrated with the dates of these field trips. The first one prevented me from participating in any of the first tramps held by the tramping club for this term. Everyone was taking a different route to some hot springs in a remote location and meeting up to hang out and get to know each other. The second field trip is in two Saturdays and it will prevent me from participating in the tramping club's workshop on snow skills in which I would learn how to properly use crampons and an ice axe. These are required skills for most of the more difficult tramps that the club has for the first part of this term at least. I'm hoping that I can pick them up in some alternative way so that I can participate in a few of these awesome sounding tramps.

Okay, about the field trip. I learned heaps of stuff at two nurseries about different ways of nursing plants until they're ready for planting and establishment in the environment. I learned things reaching from the different genetic rankings of seeds to how and when to prune nursery plants.

We made a third stop on our field trip which was actually at our lecturer's house. We were given tea and sausage rolls for a bit of a break before having a demo on planting seedlings. In the demo I learned things that made me consider that some of those Earth Day seedlings I planted will probably blow over in the next few years because I did a poor job planting them. You see, if you don't make sure that the roots go in straight, they may prevent other roots from stabilizing the tree.

Here's a picture of Nick Ledgard, the lecturer, and a bunch of my classmates walking down to where we had the short planting tutorial:


And one of Mr. Ledgard explaining something about proper fencing as we were heading down to the tutorial spot:


After the tutorial we went for a wander around Mr. Ledgard's property with him pointing out the different plantings he's done and how and why he has done them. His property was pretty interesting. He showed us lots of good things to do but also pointed out lots of things he wishes he hadn't done. For example he had an area of pruned Radiata Pine he planned to sell as clearwood, but they were spaced out with grass growing beneath. He was planning on using the land to graze sheep while he grew his trees. This, known as aggroforestry, has recently become a hefty "Don't" in the world of forestry. The grass doesn't get enough sunlight to be tasty enough to be enjoyed by the animals, the grass takes lots of water away from the trees, and it ends up not being a good combination at all. Ledgard has planted some korean pines to harvest pine nuts from since they're quite expensive, and has event planted a few basket willows to be used to make coffins should he or any of his kids wish to have an atypical burrial (which he said was becoming more common).

I learned so much and took alot of really detailed notes. While often times I feel that field trips are unnecessary for learning things, this one was a really great way to get the information about nurseries and proper planting and establishment techniques.

I would be super excited for the next field trip if it weren't planned for such an inconvenient weekend.