Still digging in

My Blip “Digging in” on 25th November celebrated the first day of planting oioi (Jointed wire rush) into Te Hakapupu estuary.  We were still going a week later.  This is an image of Shaunae Coombes, the most recent recruit to the Rūnaka nursery team, digging for ecological victory at Tūmai.

Altogether we are planting 1,664 oioi, arranged in plots of 8 plants.  The experiment spread the 208 plots at different levels at and below the high-tide line to test a hypothesis that inundation with salt impairs initial establishment of the rushes – they may be able top naturally spread down into the saltmarsh from a strong colony further up from the water line, but perhaps will struggle. Some plots were right out in the mud as well.

In the meantime, we are setting up a nursery experiment to see if we can season the plants before placing them into salty soils – so and additional 80 oioi are being kept in planter bags and are being watered with different dilutions of seawater.