Updates from the field – planting in the Great Southern, WA

In partnership with Threshold Environmental, and with support from the Small Farms grant and your generous donations, we have recently completed our planting at Cranbrook and Tenterden.  

Favourable winter rainfall has led to an initial survival and germination that indicate the 2020 project areas are on track for successful establishment. 

The site at Cranbrook spans over 75 hectares of a working farm, but is made up of 3 separate project blocks with different ecological challenges. Here is a quick recap of what went on in Cranbrook.

In total 75 hectares were planted on behalf of CNCF and their donors. This included three types of planting:

• 20 hectares Saltland Carbon
• 30 hectares Biodiverse Sandalwood 
• 25 hectares of Biodiverse planting 

A total of 85 local native plant species were used across all the project areas. This included 69 species used in direct seeding, and 25 species established by hand planted seedings (*some species were both seeded and hand planted). A total of 37.279 kilograms of locally collected native seed was seeded across 55 hectares at the Cranbrook site. In addition to the direct seeding, 58,777 seedlings were hand planted across the project areas. 

A total of 21 people were able to hand plant trees through the course of delivering this project.

Stage one of this project was completed this season and the sandalwood hosts were planted. A total of 40 different species were seeded across three patches, this required a lot of planning as each of the different patches had different soil types and planting needs. Why Sandalwood? Australian sandalwood (Santalum spicatum) once grew plentifully in the area before overharvesting. It is extremely well suited to the Wodji Soils. Sandalwood is still prized today for its aromatic oil and wood, and biodiverse planting of sandalwood provides a wide range of benefits to the landscape including habitat for other flora and fauna.

Over 3 different soil patches, a mix of 64 species were direct seeded with a combination of 1,463 seedings of Marri (Corymbia calophylla), Wandoo (Eucalyptus wandoo), and Yate (Eucalyptus occidentalis) and 7 Hakea species (H. corymbosa, H. cucullata, H. lissocarpha, H. nitida, H. prostrata, H. undulata, and H. lehmanniana).

Salty country has very specific needs and can be difficult to establish.  Understanding the planting techniques and species choice at this site will enable Carbon Positive Australia to better understand how to establish successful carbon planting on salty soils. This part of the project was supported by the Small Farms Grant and the funding enables further research and monitoring.