Water outages, die back for the dry season and greenhouse inventory is 1866 trees.

April 24-30, 2006

It rained on Wednesday for the first time in a month! Although it only lasted for two hours it was beautiful to feel the drops on our heads and see water in our tanks. The water outage continues in the city, at the same time street protests were held last week. City hall says the pipes should be flowing the second week in May. The trees, shrubs and other vegetation in the hills and parks around Bahia are begining to naturally die back for the dry season… you can actually see through Bosque en Medio de Las Ruinas!

Two local friends, Paola and Andrea, said they would like to help out with us over the next few weeks. It will be great to have the extra hands and smiles around for the watering season. We are currently keeping an eye on each of our sites to assess the need and frequency for watering. It appears as though the sections along the stream at El Toro, our final two plantings at Bosque Encantado and Cherry Tree will need twice weekly watering. While the other areas and sites currently seem fine, we will begin watering once a week now and see how they do. The classes began watering the trees planted behind the Interamericano school last week. Some of the Guachepelli’s planted this spring are now almost eight feet tall!

Since the water outage at the university is over the greenhouse is looking greener every day. The Cedros, Caobas and other trees we received from Baron’s greenhouse in Jama were transferred into new soil and bottles. They had been planted in a mulch-like soil, which did not hold water or roots very well. We lost a few of them, however I think we’ve solved the problem. The current greenhouse inventory is 1866 trees… we’re full to the rafters! Thankfully there are not many more trees coming up right now in the seedbeds, although we are continuing to water all eleven beds daily. Hopefully no more Aguia’s come up, as there are already 350 ready to go!

Finally, we spent a day finishing up our booth for the Dry Tropical Forest conference across the river in San Vicente next week. Should be interesting and includes a seed collection workshop, seminars on revegetation techniques and community experiences for throughout Peru and Ecuador. 

Hasta pronto,
Pat