Ministry hosts aboriculture training at Botanic Gardens

Aboriculture is the cultivation, management and study of trees and plants.

It was a practical session of a three-day workshop with the ministry in conjunction with the Aboriculture Research Academy.

Certified entomologist and manager of aboriculture, Anand Persad, said workers were given demonstrations on how to safely climb up and descend from a tree, and also on using the air spade.

“The air spade came from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Essentially it will deliver super sonic air into the soil. Most people won’t believe it, but soil needs 50 per cent of air. When you drive vehicles and use lawnmowers over the ground, you compact the soil and take the air out from it. What happens is the tree starts to suffer. This process is known as soil remediation.

It is not a new technique as such, but using the air spade is new, and I am happy to know that in Trinidad they are using it as we get our aboriculture standards up,” Persad said.

Acting director of the Horticulture Services Division, Petal Ram, said they were hosting this training because their staff are responsible for arboriculture work and provide this service to the Botanical Gardens, the trees at the Queen’s Park Savannah, La Pastora and those on the Agriculture Ministry’s compound.

“There has never been any training of this sort in Trinidad and we wanted to make sure our workers were exposed to the current training with international standards. With this initiative we tried not only to get our staff involved, but we have persons from the Prisons, the Chaguaramas Authority, the Emperor Valley Zoo and several municipalities with us.

This is setting up the framework so that we can continue to help our staff to develop their skills in aboricultlture,” Ram said.