To all of the students, teachers, parents and volunteers who worked on the planting of tuart seedlings in Lochart Block June 2019. The “Ludlow Tuart Forest Restoration Group” is extremely grateful for your planting efforts and would like to share with you the progress of your tuart seedlings.

Your combined effort saw 16,460 tuart seedlings planted into 16 hectare of degraded tuart forest land.

Since planting the seedlings have been fertilised, hand weeded and arum lilies controlled with herbicide. The seedlings have been protected from fire, insects and herbivores. 

Following a long hot and dry summer, some seedlings have died due to drought. This was not unexpected and all of the failed trees will be replaced this winter, 2020. 

Since the start of autumn rains the Tuart seedling are showing progressively stronger growth.

The planting work you have done will guarantee the tuart trees in this section of forest can be managed and protected to grow on to full height within 40 years and on to closed canopy maturity within 60 years.

However to achieve this there will have to be some managed silvicultural thinning activity to provide space for tree crown development and expansion. The assisted return of endemic understory plant species can occur during this time.