Mulch amendment facilitates early revegetation development on an abandoned field In northern mixed grass prairies of North America
Extensive areas of the northern mixed grass prairies of North America require restoration and reclamation as they have been extensively disturbed by agricultural, mining and oil and gas related activities Amending seedbeds with mulch may avoid soil erosion and help both plant recruitment and early vege-tation development in these water limited landscapes. A field experiment was established to determineif straw and hay mulch facilitate early revegetation. The site is an abandoned irrigation area in southern Alberta, Canada. Soil was tilled and the seedbed prepared through manual harrowing, then plots werebroadcast seeded with Elymus trachycaulus, Bouteloua gracilis, Astragalus canadensis and Linum lewisii Hay and straw mulch were applied at two rates [300 and 600 g m-2]. Plant recruitment and cover wereassessed through the first four years. Mulch had a positive impact on recruitment of all species plantedexcept Bouteloua gracilis. While a thinner material like hay proved to be most effective at high rates [600 g m-2], a thicker material like straw encouraged quick recruitment for these species only at lowapplication rates [300 g m-2]. However, these early differences among mulch treatments did not showan impact in either recruitment or cover during subsequent years. Bouteloua gracilis, whose recruitmentand growth were broadly impaired by mulch, showed an abundant and constantly increasing cover in thebare ground control and in plots with low application rates of hay. Both recruitment and cover per speciesindicate that plots are following two different trajectories that show some degree of resilience; the bareground treatment is dominated by Bouteloua gracilis whereas the mulch treatments are characterized byvegetation dominated by Elymus trachycaulus, Linum lewisii and Astragalus canadensis
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Texto biblioteca |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | SURFACE AMENDMENTS, GRASSLAND RESTORATION, OLD FIELD RESTORATION, LAND RECLAMATION, WATER USE EFFICIENCY, , |
| Online Access: | http://ceiba.agro.uba.ar/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=47261 http://ceiba.agro.uba.ar/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber= |
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