摘要：Through the Subtropical Thicket Restoration Programme (STRP), about 21.5 million cuttings of spekboom(Portulacaria afra) were planted over the period 2004–2016 in the Addo Elephant National Park, Great Fish RiverNature Reserve and the Baviaanskloof Nature Reserve. This planting includes a large experiment of 330 quarter-hectare plots in which 14 different planting treatments were used. 1 These experimental plots, known as the ‘thicket-wide plots’, comprised 200 000 cuttings, with the remaining 21.3 million cuttings planted out in what were calledthe ‘large-scale plantings’. Some of the large-scale plantings were replanted with cuttings – a procedure referredto as blanking. The positioning and number of cuttings used in each blanking operation was not recorded andconsequently the surviving cuttings in any particular landscape within the large-scale plantings cannot be agedaccurately. Notwithstanding the limitation of many sites in the large-scale plantings made up of cuttings plantedin different years, we saw value in monitoring survivorship of cuttings in random plots within the large-scaleplantings, simply to determine the likely outcomes of the South African government’s investment in planting21.5 million cuttings over the past 12 years.
