Innovation Anthology #679:
A major challenge to successful forest reclamation is soil preparation.
Traditionally at the Genesee coal mine, heavy machinery brings in subsoil, it’s compacted, and a layer of top soil is place on top.
But then it’s ploughed, which unfortunately mixes the two layers and creates furrows.
Simon Bockstette is a PhD candidate in forest ecology at the University of Alberta.
As part of his reclamation research at the Genesee mine, he worked with a new kind of plough called the McNab Ripper.
SIMON BOCKSTETTE:
We used a prototype of a subsoil plough which has wide wings at the bottom. And what it does is it lifts the subsoil up, and the subsoil crumbles and falls behind these wings. The first initial improvement that we saw was reduction in bark density, We saw an increase in pore space. And we also saw a shift from very fine pores to slightly larger pores, which do not hole onto the water as much as the fine pores. So it becomes more accessible to the plants.
To continue his reclamation experiment, Simon Bockstette treated half the site at Genesee with the new McNab Ripper, and did nothing on the other half.
Thanks today to Capital Power
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Capital Power
Program Date: 2015-04-07