Ironwood tree most difficult to grow

Muhammad Noor waters ironwood trees in the Indonesian Tropical Rainforest Park (TH2TI) in the area of Office Center of the South Kalimantan Provincial Government, Banjarbaru City. (ANTARA/Firman)

Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan (ANTARA) - A group of people were seen busy cleaning the grass that grew thickly around meranti and other trees in the the Indonesian Tropical Rainforest Park (TH2TI) in the area of Office Center of the South Kalimantan Provincial Government, Banjarbaru City.

Elsewhere, workers were watering plants using a tanker truck, marked the South Kalimantan Forestry Office, rotating around the park.

Muhammad Noor (46), one of workers met on Sunday (June 25, 2023), said there were a total of 23 workers in TH2TI, which is divided into four blocks with a total area of 90 hectares.

Their task is not light, because they are responsible that all trees to thrive since planting.

Every day the condition of trees must be monitored in the maintenance process from fertilizing, watering to clearing weeds that continue to interfere, including pest and disease that threaten fertility plant.

TH2TI, which is said to be the only one in Indonesia, has overgrown hundreds of species of meranti, and also ironwood as an endemic species of Kalimantan forest and cinnamon that mostly produced by the indigenous people of Dayak Loksado tribe in Meratus Mountains.

There are also fast growing species, such as mahagony, trembesi, jabon, and sengon.

Various type of rare fruit plants are also cultivated to various trees from various regions in the archipelago.

Call it ramin of the gonystylus bancanus type, the prpducer of wood that grow naturally in the swamp forest peat in several provinces in Sumatra.

Then there is merbau tree from Enggano Island, Bengkulu, which is endemic because it is only found in Enggano, a small island at the westernmost and south of Sumatra.

Of the countless number and types of trees, the ironwood or ulin tree is considered by the workers in TH2TI to be the most difficult to grow.

Many of these trees even died and had to be planted back from the start.

According to Muhammad Noor, the first year of it growth is a vulnerable period because they are often attacked by caterpillars that eat away their roots.

Today, the average ironwood trees in TH2TI are five years old, they grow up to 2.5 meters with a trunk diameter of approximately five centimeters.

"Experts who came here said, ulin tree can only be said safe to survive after the age of 15 year with a diameter of 40 centimeters," he told.

Ulin or ironwood is a native tree of Indonesia which classified into Lauraceae tribe that can grow up to 35 meters with a diameter of up to 120 centimeters.

Ulin trees are increasingly scarce in the nature today as a result of exploitation carried out on a large scale in the past.

During the dry season like now, watering is really considered and increased because the dry soil makes plants more prone to death.

Not to mention the threat of land fires, causing workers to intensively patrol while educating people around not to litter cigarette butts, including maintaining the cleanliness of the park by not carelessly throw trash.

The workers also often encounter wild animals such as snakes type of cobra that can be deadly, lizards, and terror of bees while on duty.

All of workers, who are registered as contract workers at the South Kalimantan Forestry Office, admitted to have got a bee sting with swollen body and face.

Even so, they have the principle that they will not kill any animals they encounter and only try to avoid or drive them away on the reason they do not want to disturb the natural balance in the TH2TI as its original condition in forest.