The IBERS Hub site was a hive of activity last week. It was a gorgeous sunny day on Thursday 20th April, perfect for the planned planting at the demo plots. Around 14 members of the team spent the day planting first the Miscanthus plots and then with additional help in the form of staff from Rothamsted Research, they moved on to the woody biomass crops and planted the Black Locust, Poplar, Alder and Eucalyptus demo plots.
After around 8 hours of hard work all the plots were fully planted, labelled and ‘ready to grow’.
All in all, over 2000 trees and cuttings were planted by hand in a single day – a record so far for the hub sites, and these numbers don’t include the Miscanthus that was planted first.
Approximate numbers for the woody biomass crops were:
- Alder: 168
- Black Locust ‘Turbo’: 240
- Black Locust ‘Turbo Obelisk’: 128
- Eucalyptus (5 varieties): 350
- SRF Poplar: 160
- SRC Poplar: 1050
Good work team, massive thanks to all those who helped. Here’s a video of them in action.
