Reclamation - restoring disturbed lands

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Regenerating conifers on rough mounded waste rock (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This reclamation is 10 years old and no soil was placed - these are going directly into waste rock. This is high elevation, so the trees grow slowly

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm not disparaging the project in any way but for us, when we come back to a site, usually we get excited about how much they've grown etc.

When you come back to a site after 10 years and they are 80cm high (not 20m high like here), are you excited about survival rates or does 70cm in 10 years get you hooting and hollering?

Loving the rock (structural soil) mounds. I'm interested in the answer to the other comment, why mounds like that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This area, as I mentioned, is high elevation in the Rockies; close to the tree line. They get maybe a 5 month growing season at best (June to end of Sept). Undistrubed soils are thin (30 cm profiles tops) and rocky.

In comparison, in good soils around here, I'd expect 10 year old trees to be 2-3 m tall; thus, given the challenging growing conditions and the complete lack of soil, I think this is pretty good. Should their reclamation prescription use not use soil? No. I say, if it's there, use it. However, mines are almost always short on material due to their inherent changes in topography (which creates more surface area to reclaim) so I think in areas you're short, this is viable and comparable, given that across the valley, on an undisturbed mountain the trees probably look similar at the same age.

why mound like that

Rough mounding is used for three reasons:

Slow water movement, and reduce erosion
improve water retention on the slope for the plants
Create a divers micro-topography that results in more microsites for a wide variety of plants to grow. Some do good on the tops of hummocks, while the the more shade and thirstier spp. do well in the hollows.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How high? Previous forest cover? The mounds look suspiciously like it. The pinus spec. In front is likely around five to six years old, judging by its twigs. How high is the herbivorous population? This is extremely unspecific.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Trees are about 80 cm to 150 cm in height. Elevation is somewhere close to 2000 MASL. Upper portions of the site are about 2250 MASL.

Mounds look suspiciously like it

Yes, the area was forested, cleared, mined, and then they recreated the area by recontouring the landscape to about 26°, and then rough mounded (created the mounds you see) using equipment and planting into it.

Herbivorous population

While I get what you're getting at, as in they can decimate early rec, I don't think it's a factor here.

Unspecific

Layeth thy questions upon me

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you for your detailed answer.

Why don’t you think that big game plays a role here? Why recreate the mounds? The literature I’ve read concerning reforestation claims that the mounds of previous trees are beneficial because of their stumps degrading on top and better water retention trough the root system. This information might be old though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

why mound like that

Rough mounding is used for three reasons:

Slow water movement, and reduce erosion
improve water retention on the slope for the plants
Create a divers micro-topography that results in more microsites for a wide variety of plants to grow. Some do good on the tops of hummocks, while the the more shade and thirstier spp. do well in the hollows.

Big game

They certainly have a role, but I think there's a lot more preferential browsing sources for them in the surrounding areas, rather than this area. It's just recovering, and doesn't likely offer that great of a food source for them, when there are old growth forests near by.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is interesting! Do you have any data concerning the effectiveness of this method and would you be willing to share it? I’d be interested to incorporate that into work.

As for big game, we found that especially young growths are a source of nutrition for red, roe and fallow deer, as well as several other species, all that f which tend to preferentially browse newly established forests. Several forestry certific have incorporated proper game management in their national standards because of these experiences in Germany.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Here is a little PDF on the method by the guy who developed it

here's a paper by him.
2012 paper

you can do rough mounding a couple ways; another way is to just have humps of topsoil, if you don't want to admix your soils, and it works pretty well. I've seen the results first hand.

preferentially browse

We've seen this too, over here; they'll come in and eff up our sites, but it didn't happen here, probably because it's kind of in the middle of the mine.