Innovation Anthology #532:

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Replacing the forest after oil sands mining is a monumental task.

Over the last five years, and his graduate students have researched how to improve the survival of replanted tree seedlings.

Dr. Landhausser holds an Industrial Chair in Forest Land Reclamation at the University of Alberta.

DR SIMON LANDHAUSSER: There are a multitude of challenges. The first one of course is, once these landscape structures and hill slopes and so on are developed, they don’t have really any vegetation. So when you plant a seedling out there, it’s pretty much alone in the wide world and is exposed to the environment. And so drought and cold and wind have a big influence on these little guys and they need to be ready for taking on the real world.

Unlike forestry where aspen regenerates from its roots, in oil sands reclamation aspen seedlings have to be planted by hand.

DR SIMON LANDHAUSSER: We made quite big strides in producing better seedlings, higher quality seedlings, so we know what the characteristics of those seedlings are. So we can see already in the field or before we plant them whether these are good seedlings or whether they might not perform as well.

Dr. Landhausser presented his research at the recent CONRAD Symposium on Oil Sands Reclamation.

Thanks today to Syncrude

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Syncrude

Program Date: 2013-02-07