Innovation Anthology #455:
A big challenge for oil sands reclamation is getting aspen to regrow on old mine sites.
The original root clones are gone, so that means planting a lot of aspen seedlings.
Kaitlin Schott is a masters student at University of Alberta who’s researching how improve the quality of aspen stock.
KAITLIN SCHOTT: The growing environment in Fort McMurray can be quite harsh and a lot of times we compensate for that by fertilizing the actual field where trees are planted. But what happens is a lot of that fertilizer can runoff and be an environmental concern. Therefore, if we could plant higher quality seedlings, they would be able to grow on their own and not need this extra fertilizer in the field.
Aspen is an indeterminant species, and keeps growing throughout the entire season. So Kaitlin stops this growth by applying hormones.
KAITLIN SCHOTT: I found that this shoot termination with hormones allowed aspen seedlings to have higher nutrient concentrations, which means when we go to out plant them in the field, they’re ready and prepared with more nutrients to combat harsh conditions.
Kaitlin Schott presented her research at the recent CONRAD Symposium on oil sands reclamation.
Thanks today to SYNCRUDE
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Program Date: 2012-02-09