Establishing a climate‐ready revegetation trial in central Victoria – A case study

A promising approach in dealing with the detrimental effects of climate change on vegetation is to introduce pre-adapted genotypes into restoration programmes. Bush Heritage’s Victorian reserves have experienced eucalypt dieback probably due intense drought and heat shock linked change. Planned revegetation Nardoo Hills reserve provided an opportunity establish test potential for new climate-matched expand adaptive capacity plantings. As NRM practitioners, here we document our experiences implementing this approach. Using Climate Analogues tool Australasian Virtual Herbarium, selected provenances from four analogue regions where remnants focal species, Grey Box (Eucalyptus microcarpa) Yellow (E. melliodora), were located. Replicated plots established covering five 5 up 10 ‘families’ (mother trees) per provenance. Numerous challenges encountered including locating suitable provenances, design scientific compromises associated experimental layout, sourcing adequate seed remote (especially affected) high mortality during seedling establishment. Monitoring nine months after planting revealed not only overall (around 70%, conditions establishment) but also significant differences height between among families both species. Despite initial mortality, nested level replication applied these appear hypotheses about value matching will continue be monitored future.