Accelerating cover dominance of native plant communities to exclude undesirable ruderal and weedy species from reclamation sites

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Large areas of Crown lands in Alberta are affected by resource exploration and extraction disturbances. The current legislation requires operators to reclaim disturbed areas to 'equivalent land capability". In urban, agricultural, and industrial shaped landscapes, however, non-native species can suppress the native flora and significantly slow down natural succession. This means that it often takes longer than anticipated to meet provincial reclamation requirements. Therefore, encouraging speedy development of desirable, native plant species is a crucial step to ensure that a newly reclaimed site is not overtaken by non-native species. This project aims to comparatively test the principle of speedy site-occupancy of native species through deployment of (i) nursery produced root fragments, (ii) herbicides designed to preclude initial development of undesirable vegetation, giving planted native species a head-start in establishment and (iii) third to evaluate a combination of herbaceous species (grasses and forbs) either directly-seeded or 'hitchhiker'-planted in conjunction with conventional tree and shrub seedling planting. The benefits of this project include testing novel, yet simple, practical and inexpensive approaches to facilitate faster native plant establishment on barren landscapes. All techniques described for this project do not require sophisticated equipment and can readily be transferred to the industrial partners of this project and other industries facing similar conditions.