14
ERDC/CRREL SR-02-2
Matching species to site conditions
Preparing the seedbed
Planting: broadcasting vs. drilling
Protecting the area appropriately from problems such as grazing and
weed competition.
Examples of disturbed areas and revegetation efforts
Hard Rock Gold Mine in western Montana. The site receives 10 to 12
inches of precipitation per year. It has 1:1 slopes and no topsoil. Seeding
was accomplished on coarse-textured overburden with bluebunch wheat-
grass, slender wheatgrass, and thickspike wheatgrass using a modified
snowmobile.
Snake River highway project used a native species seed mixture and
straw fiber mats along roadsides. Hydromulching and wood fiber cost
about 00/acre plus mobilization fees. A native grass seed mixture
costs about /acre. Straw mesh erosion control fabric costs about
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.20 to 0.50/sq. yd. plus installation.Hell Creek landslide, west of Glacier National Park. This site also had
1:1 slopes. Restoration included a combination of shrubs, jute net, and a
sterile hybrid wheatgrass as a nurse crop. The hybrid lasted only two to
three years and helped prevent erosion until the perennial grasses became
established.
ARCO, "C Hill," Anaconda, Montana. The C Hill is a 60% slope site
that was originally timbered. Tons of soil had been lost, some stump
roots were 3 to 4 feet above ground, and sediment was washing into city
streets and sewers. The surface 34 inches of soil material was highly
acidic (pH 3.7 to 4.2) from smelter stack emissions, with calcium carbon-
ate below. A gouging machine (Hodder Gouger) towed by a tractor was
used to make pits (4 feet long by 2 feet wide by 4 inches deep) to hold
water and get down to the Ca layer. Broadcast seeding of thickspike
wheatgrass, slender wheatgrass, and basin wildrye established well in
the pits. The area was also limed--although the liming was probably not
necessary--and mulched with cereal straw, but the mulch blew away.
The pits provided microsites for successful plant establishment. Five
years later, shrubs that had come from adjacent lands and that had been
grown in a nursery were transplanted onto the site.
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