Category: Nancy Elliot

Through extensive research of information online and gardening books from my parents I found out the exact amount of water each tree should be receiving and what counts as “excessive” and “the right amount”. In my study, the plum tree is the moderately watered fruit tree, in which it gets 8 liters of water per week. Ideally, a plum tree should be watered twice a week, which means each watering day the tree gets 4 liters.

The pear tree on the other hand gets less water, if it were the moderately watered tree. The right amount of water is 4 liters per week and watering twice a week, so 2 liters of water per watering. In this study, the pear tree is the “excessively” watered tree so I am watering it the same amount as the pear tree, which is 4 liters twice a week.

The cherry tree does not receive any watering, although would normally be maintained at 4 liters twice a week.

I choose two nights per tree to water them, but never both trees on the same night. Each tree expands an area of 1 square meter, so my quadrats are split into 9 sections, and fruit is counted individually in each section. So far I have done 2 replicates, as the fruit is just starting to produce and grow. I plan on collecting data until August to get the maximum yield of fruit, so 10 replicates altogether. In the end I will do a final count of fruit on each tree to complete my study and most likely just use that number for my conclusion. The overall number throughout the whole study is mainly just for my curiosity.

So far my sampling design has been working out for me. If I were to redo this experiment I would net the trees so birds couldn’t pick at the fruit and potentially disrupt a true fruit yield. Patterns I have noticed come from more the leaves of the tree than what the fruit looks like, although it might yet be too early to tell how this is going to affect the fruit itself.  The cherry tree and the pear tree both have unhealthy looking leaves that curl up, with some turning reddish/brown and wilting. The plum tree has healthy looking dark green leaves. In comparison to last year, the cherries growing on the tree don’t seem to be as abundant this year, but that can be due to other variables I haven’t accounted for in this study.

Cherry: no watering- drought

Plum: normal watering- control

Pear tree: excessive watering- too much water stress

My data collection has come with a few hardships to over come because of the change of seasons, we are currently going into our dry season. The change has brought about colder weather and more overcast days, we have also had an unusually high amount of rain for this time of year. This late rain has kept the natural water pans full and productive. The grass in the southern areas of the Timbavati is still green whilst in the north where I am is a far drier. From my observations it seems like the breeding herds of Elephants have stayed in the South to utilize the greener food.

To try and maximize my data I can collect I have chosen 10 replicates or water holes to monitor this has allowed me to monitor both the Northern and Southern areas of our traversing area. I have set the cameras up generally durning the mid-day as it is when I have time off in between game drives.  They then spend 5 days and night at the pre-determined water hole. Each camera is set to capture a photo at 15 minute intervals, each camera also takes a picture if the motion sensor is triggered. Generally an animal will trigger a photo at about 15 meters from the camera so I try to pick an area closest to the water that gives the biggest field of view to maximize photos taken. One thing to take into account is the curious hyenas who have on one occasion tasted my one camera trap ( it is still in one piece, barely) and on the other occasions come for a quick sniff.  On 11  different occasions I have had only Elephant bulls coming down to drink while in the month my cameras have been up I have not counted one breeding herd of Elephants. I am however starting to see a pattern as to when the Elephants, bulls in particular come down to drink. It seems as the heat of the day does have influence when the Bulls come down to drink rather than the time of day. On most occasions the Elephants have drank from 17 -20 Degrees Celsius  which seems to be the preferred temperature for the Bulls to drink irrelevant to the time of day. This ancillary pattern shows that the bulls as unfortunately that is all I have been able to capture on traps do have a preference as to what temperature they drink at. This could be assumed that the heat of the day does have something to do with their drinking activities

Most water holes that I have monitored have however been very quiet in terms of Elephant activity, Impala and Warthog, have been the far busiest at the water points.  This is not of any surprise as the Impala and the Warthog are water dependant species. I have also captured, lion, leopard, Hyena, buffalo, waterbuck, doves,  Egyptian geese, and mongoose. The Elephant bulls have favoured one dam much more than any other and in hind sight it may have been more beneficial to leave the camera traps at my first two water holes that I chose to study.