|
Speaking Your
Mind
Fundamentally Flawed?

“Re-establishing sustainable native plant growth on
drastically disturbed soils in harsh environments”
at FHWA’s Flowery Trail Scenic By-way, WA.
Acknowledging
the Elephant in the Living Room
By some accounts, the reclamation native seeding industry is
fundamentally flawed. To the casual observer, at least, any
industry that can experience 85% “disappointing” results
must appear to have some major room for improvement. At times,
even that 15% estimate of success is under fire, despite the
vast amount of knowledge that has been accumulated from years
of research on the life and times of native plant species by
smart and dedicated individuals.
On a recent statewide review of approximately 60 reclamation
sites, costing a King’s ransom to plant and seed, the
following insight was volunteered: “Where there was irrigation,
inappropriate plant species were growing; where there was no
irrigation, nothing was growing”. Such an assessment
could well apply to much of the seeded acreage undertaken throughout
our 12-State Western U.S. region.
I recall sitting in on a well-attended Contractor Forum, scheduled
just before the closing ceremony of the 1997 IECA conference
in Nashville, TN. This forum addressed the ins and outs of
bidding on reclamation seeding contracts. After 90 minutes
of lively discussion, we broke up with a startling and discouraging
consensus: that the contract winning “low bid” invariably
turns out to become the most expensive route to implementing
a seeding project! Obviously, all is not well in Denmark.
The Challenge Defined
At the outset, some definitional caveats should be made. “Reclamation
seeding” means restoring disturbed land to the natural
vegetative state that existed before it was disturbed. It is
the challenge to “re-establish sustainable native plant
growth on drastically disturbed soils in harsh environments” that
we are concerned with. This translates into attempting to grow
native plants on steep slopes of what is often decomposed granite
rock in desert conditions.
 |
| Hydroseeding at high altitude on steep slopes at
Cripple Creek Mine (Victor, Colorado). |
Such
conditions include blast-furnace heat in the summer, icy
wind over snow in the winter, only 6”-18” of annual
precipitation, and much of that coming from snow melt. “Success” is
defined as a sustainable blend of diversified native shrub,
forb and grass plant community that mirrors the vegetation
coverage on adjacent undisturbed areas. Admittedly, this
is a tall order by any standard.
The good news is that there are reclamation seeding practitioners
successfully re-establishing native plants on tough sites,
and on a consistent basis. The weak performance at most of
the 85%-90% failing projects has more to do with erroneous
design and/or dishonorable implementation, than with the severity
of the acknowledged challenge.
Design Shortcomings
 |
| Implementing the “Growing Soil™” technologies
on a heap leach pad in a harsh environment (Mojave, CA).
Hydroseeding is often unfairly maligned as a failure-prone
seeding technique. In reality, lackluster performance
is caused by failing to re-establish a functioning soil
food web in the seed bed. |
So where are we going wrong? Part of the problem stems from
a lack of awareness of fundamental technologies that have
proven successful across time at jump-starting the re-establishment
of native plant species on disturbed soils. There are those
who plow on with “tried and failed” agronomic practices,
blaming Mother Nature’s lack of cooperation for bringing
them lackluster introduced grasses interspersed with weeds,
if they bother to monitor the site at all. Although we all
know native species march to a very different drum than,
say, introduced plant species, some practitioners persist
with utilizing
aberrations of agronomic models to grow native plants, using
materials and methods more suited to ornamental horticulture
and crop farming.
This persistence with “growing carrots in the desert”,
notwithstanding the pockets of success attained by practitioners
who have oriented their seeding efforts in a variety of ways
to mimic Mother Nature, is merely one “inappropriate
technology” example of the numerous shortcomings relating
to the design phase of a conventional seeding project.
 |
| Successful germination of seeded native species
after minimal spring rainfall (Mojave, CA). |
Plant species selection is another fertile area for weak
design, where the utilization of inappropriate plant species
and inappropriate
ancillary soil amendments dooms the project at the outset.
In addition, because there is little understanding of the “big
picture”, of what is required to set the stage for
the successful re-establishment of site-adapted native plants,
we unwittingly specify actions that are counter-productive
to the ultimate design goals.
For example, the attainment of one short-term goal (say, the
wish to establish quick-growing grasses for timely erosion
control) will frustrate the attainment of critical longer-term
goals such as the establishment of deep-rooted native shrubs.
Or agronomic fertilizer will be applied for the purpose of
boosting plant/carrots growth, resulting in a runaway weed
competition problem and a soil we have unwittingly rendered
more sterile than before we blundered into view. Or wood fiber
mulch and/or straw will be blanketed on the slope to “pillow” the
impact of raindrops and retain moisture in the soil (good),
creating such an imbalance in the C : N ratio to lock up nitrogen
(bad) that it’s a wonder anything grows. The practice
of adding agronomic fertilizer (misguided) to counter this
nitrogen lock-up side effect sends the project into a downward
spiral (bad).
 |
| “Brains over Bulk” - Lower bulk of Growing
Soil Technologies™ seeding
materials enabled contractor to boost his productivity
by quadrupling the
seeding coverage per load at Tamarack Resort, Idaho. |
As with treating a patient, the cure may be worse than the
cold. The side effect of one action, however successful it
may be at achieving an interim objective, has the potential
to sabotage the ultimate goal. To carry the analogy a step
further, conventional seeding does not even inquire as to
what the patient is suffering from. We blindly apply seed
and amendments
without having a clue as to the soil we are seeding into. “Dirt
is dirt” is the mentality, and we pay for such lack
of common sense with expensive failures.
Implementation Shortcomings
And finally, a big part of the problem stems from an incredibly
dislocated process of implementing even a well-designed reclamation
seeding plan.
The industry is permeated by a colorful assortment of individuals,
some of whom are, by nature, bent on doing other than what
is contained in the contract specifications they agreed to
implement, especially where it betters their bottom line. Suffice
to say, the implementation contractor should not be acting
as your de facto seeding re-designer, though not all follow
in this view.
Mother Nature Intolerant of “Weak Links”
In the face of this basket of “design” and “implementation” shortcomings,
Mother Nature has unfortunately proven herself to be intolerant
of any inattention or “weak links” where reclamation
native seeding is concerned. Just as one can’t be “a
little pregnant”, one has to be successful on all critical
fronts to effectively establish native plants on tough sites.
With a flawed design, you’re doomed before you begin.
Conversely, the best design and soil amendments in the world
are equally ineffective when paired with inappropriate plant
species, or dead seed. Can any of you recall when good design,
good seed and good soil amendments were ruined by flawed implementation?
Given the common understanding that native species are entirely
dependent upon healthy microbial communities in the soil for
survival, what are we doing to encourage the development of
the soil food web?
IECA’s Challenge and What’s Been Done About It
 |
| Where it all began: In 1996, after 8 years of product-oriented
frustration, ITD hit native plant revegetation paydirt
with the implementation of the “Growing Soil™” Technologies
at Horseshoe Bend Hill, Idaho. |
So returning to the IECA Contractor Forum in Nashville in
1997. As we shuffled to the exit doors, with the surprising
consensus
determination of “low bid = most expensive” very
much on our minds, the words of forum moderator and WCIECA
member Ed Kleiner, rang in our ears: “Let’s go
back to our regional Chapters and see what we can do about
correcting this unfortunate reality”, or words to that
effect. For now, popcorn and beer awaited us in the closing
ceremony hall.
In the upcoming Summer and Fall newsletters, we (the Royal “we” here,
so feel free to send in your views) propose to (a) highlight
the varied shortcomings of conventional native plant seeding
design, and share innovative seeding technologies that have
evolved over the past 10 years that may well improve your chances
of seeding success; and (b) bring you some insights into what
various parties have done since 1997 to overhaul the “low
bid = most expensive” implementation shortcomings of
their seeding projects, and how this overhaul has translated
into seeding success in the field.
Again, the good news is that sustainable native plant establishment
is being successfully accomplished, and on a consistent basis.
However, much still needs to be done before this success permeates
throughout the seeding industry, sufficient to chip away at
that “85% disappointing results” estimate. It is
abundantly clear to many of us that the industry has a ways
to go to meet the nature and dimension of the challenges at
hand.
This article was first printed in the Western Chapter of
IECA Newsletter, Winter
2003. Written by Peter McRae, President
Quattro Environmental, Inc.
For reprints or for further information, please contact
us.
For other articles in this series, check our Articles
page.
 |
quattro_spk1_flawed.pdf
Click
to view this document in Adobe Acrobat® PDF
format (1.2MB). Right-click (hold-click in MacOS)
and choose Save link as... or Save target as..
to save
the file to your hard drive. |
Growing Soil™ and Growing Soil Technologies™ are
trademarks of Native Plants Alliance.
|