Meet the field-team working in Yucatan

Hola !

We are the team of the Estación de Investigación (Research Station) in Plant-for-the-Planet Mexico and this is our online blog! Here you will get to know a little more about us and the main projects we are working on:

1. The experiments

• The Shade house: An experiment with 1,980 saplings from 11 native species such as Zapote, Ramón, Siricote, Wuaxim, Cedro and Caoba. These plants are further divided into soil/inoculum and watering/drought treatments.
• A5: A field experiment with14 native species and microbiome treatments. Trees were planted in an open degraded previously grazing area.

Both of these experiments’ findings will help us do better restoration efforts! Ricardo coordinates both experiments; Doris and Montserrat capture and transcribe thousands of data entries; while Rodolfo, Carlos Mario, Agustín, Uriel, Rubicel, Abimael, Pablo, David, César take care of the trees on site.

2. The seed collection:

• Fruit collection and seed processing from around 10 local pioneer species. These seeds will be grown and used in our 2021 restoration projects. Marcos and Evaristo constantly go to the basecamp’s surroundings to look for blooming and bearing fruit trees.

3. The GIS and site verification department:

• Georeferencing, spatial image interpretation, drone flying, and map designing are some of the activities that Marco and Dinosca do frequently in this department. They also get in touch with our local neighbors to prevent any kind of land use conflicts.

4. The restoration projects:

Samantha is establishing and examining restoration projects standards directly with people at Tutzing while locally helping with the shadehouse experiments, fieldwork and GIS department.

Finally, Leland and Anna supervise, set the beat, and give thoughtful observations and recommendations to these activities and projects.

Stay tuned for more updates and insights about the work of Plant-for-the-Planet Mexico.

Marcos E.