As well as my willow idea – you know, the long-term plan to have a collaboration between sites and engagement activities to coppice willow and hazel with which to build screens… and maybe more – I have another project.
Mischa has handed over to me one that she came up with (her idea is NOT the stupid one) to see if there is a dormant seed bank in an area of woodland on the site.
So, we have marked out two areas of four quadrats, 2m x 2m. One is under quite closed canopy, the other is more open. There will be two more when we have cleared more of the sycamores. In each four, two of the quadrats have been scraped of the top layer of soil and leaf litter, and two remain as they were. One scraped and one unscraped will be protected from herbivores. In this way, we can see what grows under the different circumstances.
After attending a course on monitoring and management given by the Trust’s CEO, Brian Eversham, I wanted to take this further so I got in touch with Tim, the entomologist I met during lockdown. It turns out he knows Mischa – and Brian – very well.
I said that I want to understand or, rather, explore, processes and relationships. I want to see what’s connected… So we came up with a plan. I will have two control quadrats – no scraping – one in my garden (including the wormy compost) and one on the site near a ride – they are ‘optimal’. I will test the soil ph in all three areas and do some kind of worm count, plus sieving the litter for bugs and some pitfall traps.
He showed me beetles under a stereo microscope. Some have beautiful iridescent colours. He said they see UV light and I wondered whether their carapaces may also have UV coloration.
He gave me a book on the soil. The soil. I tried to explain to Tim, but didn’t really do a good job, partly because it sounded so crazy and I wanted to miss out the craziest bits…. But once, when I asked the tarot cards and once when I asked my poplar, I was told that ‘what matters is the soil’. I am following my insanity into something that bears some tangential relation to science.
You are getting into some interesting research. I think seeds in the soil can stay dormant for years, depending on lots of "stuff". One optimal site is "near a ride"? What's a 'ride'? Do you have access to a stereo microscope. They're wonderful tools for small soil insects and other arthropods. I spent a lot of my time at work looking for springtails from soil samples. Good luck with the project!