Bashers Bush Update Jan 2013

As you all should know the Bashers do a lot of work to support Roots and Shoots and the Million Tree project. This year was a big year for the project with it reaching its first million tree goal.

The dates for the this years planting trips that are still open for registration are April 16-19 or 23-26th.

If you are interested in making the trip up to Inner Mongolia like many of the Bashers have done please let me know and I will get the full details for you.

Below you can read the current status report of the world famous Bashers Bush. It reads a bit like a classic Bashers lumberjack!

Name: Basher’s Bush

Location: Plot 2012-5, Tugurige Village, Kezuohou Qi, Tongliao County, Inner Mongolia, China

Density: 1.5m*6m, 74 trees/Mu (1,100trees/hectare)

Size: 40.5 Mu (2.7 ha)

Quantity: 3,000 (100% Poplars)

Tree species:

Hybrid poplar (Populus simonii)

Forest characteristics and growth

The 2012 forest has been planted on a total of four villages, with eight separate plots and a total of 417.93 hectares (6,269 Mu). The villages are Liujiazi, Tugurige Village, Zhisha, and Xianjin. With millet intercropped, the forest is strengthened by biodiversity and extra organic matter, which enriches the soil with nutrients.

The survey of the trees took place in September and November this year, and has found an average survival rate of poplar trees on plot 2012-5 is 73.57%. The survival rate of this plot of this land is greater than to the total 2012 forest results, which has a survival rate of 68% (63% for poplars; 80% for pines).

The poplar trees grew to an average height of 2.35 m, and had a diameter of 1.78 cm; while the average height of all 2012 poplars was 1.50m.

Problems, analysis, and future steps:

Overall, the Basher’s Bush and the rest of plot 2012-5 are doing close, but not as well as we had predicted. The surviving trees are growing quite a bit taller than the average, however there were a few human errors that were observed through on-site visits and investigations, causing death or damage to the trees. They include: farmers not strictly following our guidelines about spacing of the crops and trees (planting too close together), as well as running over some of the seedlings with the truck as they planted their own crops.

In response, we have talked to the local Forestry Bureau and are having the destroyed and damaged trees replanted in the spring of 2013, and are increasing our communication with the farmers to ensure this does not happen again.

Through our full forest report and comparison analysis we have learned that one or two large areas of land are more successful than multiple smaller plots. We will work on securing a larger plot of land each proceeding year for the better growth and maintenance of the trees.