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!
