Sizing koa saplings

Yesterday I went back up to the State Tree Nursery in Waimea to volunteer again (after my first time there three weeks earlier). I had thought we'd be doing the same thing, but discovered we were doing something a little different this time. Instead of transplanting seedlings from their germination beds into individual growing containers, we had trays of already-transplanted saplings several months old, and were dividing them by size (and spacing them out a little more) to help the smaller ones grow better without getting shading out by the taller ones.

(When does a seedling become a sapling, anyway? I guess that's a bit like asking when a baby becomes a child…)

(Oh, and happy Thanksgiving!)

This photo shows the process: on the right, a tray of saplings of various sizes, which I sorted into the four trays on the table. (I started with three size categories, but found four worked slightly better after some experience, which is why they go second-smallest/largest/second-largest/smallest from left to right.) We also gave them a bit of fertilizer, and removed any weeds that had sprouted. It was a rather meditative (and surprisingly satisfying) experience, as I quickly became proficient at sizing saplings and there was a hydroponic setup with some gently recirculating water that made it a very low-stress, soothing time. Perhaps as a result I didn't bother counting closely, but we probably handled some two thousand or so saplings over the course of the morning, finishing about 1:30 in the afternoon.

One other interesting thing I got to see was koa seeds (above). Koa is in the Fabaceae or pea family, and forms little leguminous seed pods which contain the seeds, which are about the size of a soybean, though a lot flatter.

Anyway, that's all the volunteering for the Mauna Kea Forest Restoration Project I have for now; the volunteering opportunities they have aren't spread evenly throughout the year, but tend to bunch up somewhat. I asked about the saplings I helped sort yesterday, and was told they'll probably be planted next spring in a few months, so who knows, I might get a chance to help put them in the ground come that time. We'll see! A hui hou!

Transplanting koa seedlings

Last week I had the opportunity to volunteer at the State Tree Nursery over in Waimea. We were helping transplant koa seedling from their germination beds into individual containers, to grow up a bit more before being used for reforestation efforts on Maunakea next year. If you remember when I volunteered to go planting back in the spring, this is where those saplings we were planting came from. It was interesting to see that, a bit like reading a prequel story. 

Here's a photo of what we were working with – hundreds of seedlings, germinated together in a bed on a table.

Each went into its own individual container, to grow until they're about waist height and ready for outplanting.

And here's how many we had left at the end of the day! I know I personally filled six racks of fifty containers each (plus helped fill a few more), so between volunteers and staff that were there that day we probably transplanted over two thousand seedlings, easily. Not all of them will survive when planted in the wild, but that's still quite a few trees that will go out next year! And this was just one day of four – I'll be heading back on the 27th for another day of transplanting.

In fact, as I took Old Saddle Road to Waimea in the morning, I drove by where I'd helped plant saplings earlier this year and caught glimpses of some of them in passing. I don't know how long koa take to grow – I imagine it's on the order of decades – so it'll probably be a while until they're majestic trees, but it was inspiring to see them growing there. Hopefully I'll have more opportunities to help with planting in the future. A hui hou!