Tawa fruit crop across New Zealand - help needed for MSc

Nature Talk
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Kia ora koutou,

I’m in need of some help for a current research project. Given the large scale and time restraints of the work, iNaturalist could be a huge help, hopefully this an appropriate forum to ask for this kind of help.

I’m a Master’s student at the University of Auckland, investigating how climate and soil variables might influence variation in the fruit crop of the endemic tree Beilschmiedia tawa across it’s entire natural range, and the implications for kererū and other frugivores.

Before field work begins (early Feb) we are trying to gauge how much fruit is being produced around the country (tawa occurs from near the top of the North Island down to Kaikoura). If it is too poor a fruiting year we may have to abandon the project for now. So far we have looked mostly in the central North Island and found very little fruiting trees.

So, if you are out for a bush walk and happen across any tawa I would be super appreciative if you wouldn’t mind having a quick look for any fruit! It can be quite hard to see fruit on the taller trees without binocs, but if trees are producing lots there should be both ripe and unripe fruit on the ground beneath the canopy. Also, fruit only really grows on branches exposed to direct sunlight. Any questions please get in touch.

Many thanks :)

Oscar Clendon

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We have tawa on our property in Featherston, South Wairarapa. I’ll have a look for you today :)

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Welcome to the Forum.
You can use the Explore page to see both the people who have most recently made observatons of the species, and those with the most overall, in your areas of interest. You can leave comments on their posts, or send messages to them.
Also, since you’re already looking through the observations, why not annotate all phenology if it isn’t already ;)

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Great idea…will keep an eye out when I next go to Kaipatiki Estuary where there are a few tawa…

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I’ve shared your request to the iNatNZ Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/inaturalistnz

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Hi there, I volunteer on a project in Hawes Bush Waharoa, the Tawa there are fruiting.

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I uploaded a couple of bad photos of one of our tawa today. They are fruiting, but there isn’t a lot of fruit on them. There is a mixture of ripe and unripe fruits.
Good luck with your Masters!

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Thanks!

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Cheers, I’ve sent messages to few messages to people have observed tawa and good some useful replies :) Good idea with the phenology, I wasn’t aware of that feature, very cool!

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Thanks heaps :)

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Thanks Lisa!

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Hi, would say there were many fruit on the trees? And did you notice if most of the tawa were fruiting or only a few? Thanks :)

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A small tip:
you can quote someone in your reply like this, by highlighting their words and selecting “quote”

and you can do this multiple times in one post to avoid multiple posts in a row. like this!

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But if you quote them in their entirety, their quote automatically disappears from your reply.

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https://inaturalist.nz/observations/68458022
Derek Craig, the observer of this one, is interested in native fruiting as a nursery manager, and may be willing to share any unrecorded tawa observation history with you. Good luck with the study!

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