EucXylo’s ‘block party’: Laying the foundation for our upcoming trial

Post authored by Technical Officer Dr Leandra Moller

Under the level 3 risk regulations, 33% of Stellenbosch University’s student community has been allowed to return to campus for the second semester. This has been a great relief for us at EucXylo since this cohort also included most of our post graduate students. Making the most of being able to work together again, the EucXylo group spend a day in our nursery area preparing for an extremely important phenomenological trial, which will produce the data that will be used to test several of the models created by our group (more information on the trial to follow in subsequent posts).

Seeing that this trial is of high importance to us, the group banded together in true team spirit and toiled at laying the block platforms for the bagged trees. This entailed scraping away gravel stones, transporting cement blocks from the back of our nursery area and laying down the blocks in the open spaces.

Although it was backbreaking work, everyone gave their all – some of our more persnickety members even went so far as to relocate some of the platforms by a few centimeters to ensure that they lined up better. The huge effort was deemed worthwhile when we adjourned for our ‘party’: enjoying some well-deserved pizza and drinks while practicing social distancing in the quad of our department. We are extremely proud of our handiwork and are hoping to start with this trial within the next few weeks. So, stay tuned for an update on the planting of our clones!