Diary - 2010

July : Measuring trees and counting worms

"Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm going down the garden to dig worms..."

Prior to our arrival Frances had done a little background reading about using earthworm biomass as a way of measuring the quality of the soil. When trees were first planted on the hill there was no soil as such. Frances' preliminary findings are available here or on the Documents page.

Given the poor starting point we weren't expecting to find very many. We were amazed by the number of worms we caught, the size of some of them and the variety of species!

On the tree side Cariad was measured.

Mike and his students carried out a biodiversity survey on their plot and found at least eight butterfly species and four different bee species. This, together with the many flora species, shows the site is moving back towards a natural state.

Quote from Kip in an email - "I just wish worms could be furry and cuddly, like the small mammals."