The saplings in Buena Vista generally have many fewer leaves now than they did when I sampled them in July 2013. I was hoping that the trees would already be experiencing refoliation by now with the onset of the wet season, but it appears that leaf flush may still be a few weeks off. Unfortunately, I don't think I can start my defoliation experiment until leaf flush occurs. I want to force plants to use the emergency nutrient reserves that they set aside for stress events (e.g., a fallen branch, a very hungry caterpillar) rather than the reserves they have set aside to create new leaves this year.
On the bright side, the majority of the Inga saplings have oodles of maturing buds -- maybe leaf flush will happen soon?!?! Faramea is a little more iffy -- they produced a lot of leaves between Septemeber and January, but show very few immature leaves right now.
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