Organic Amendments to Compacted Degraded Urban Highway Roadsides

Summary: Soil-incorporated, surface-applied organic amendments sustain coralberry, fragrant sumac and Oregon grape on compacted degraded urban highway roadsides.

Fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica) displays capability of transforming compacted degraded urban highway roadsides via organic amendments; fragrant sumac at Tyler Arboretum, Media, Delaware County, southeastern Pennsylvania; May 17, 2013: Jim, the Photographer, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Compacted degraded urban highway roadsides accept soil-incorporated, surface-applied treatments in Urban Highway Roadside Soils and Shrub Plantings Enhanced by Surface-Applied and Incorporated Organic Amendments in Arboriculture & Urban Forestry for December 2016.

Andy Bary, Craig Cogger and Rita L. Hummel of the State University Puyallup Research and Extension Center in Puyallup, Washington, base their findings upon three-year investigations. They confer one-year minimum and 10-year maximum life cycles upon roadside trees whose roots and vigor heavy compaction, low levels of porosity and poor structure compromise. They draw upon 40-year research that demonstrates no consistent improvements in woody plant growth and establishment from organic soil amendments destined only for planting-hole backfill soils.

Research from 2014 on surface-applied compost topdressing and wood-chip mulch encourages the trio's extending to compacted urban soils research of 2008 into agricultural soil-incorporated surface-applied compost.

The current study focuses upon bark mulch-overlayered, soil-incorporated, surface-applied organic amendments funneled by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) into compacted degraded urban highway roadsides.

The "highly compacted glacial outwash substratum" of surface runoff- and winter rain-wettened gravel and rocks gets soil-incorporated, surface-applied biosolids-sawdust blend, worm castings and yard debris compost. It has an 8-centimeter- (3.15-inch-) thick layer of Douglas-fir, WSDOT-standard bark atop amendments compacted by dropping an 18.9-liter (4.99-gallon) bucket 20 times from 30-centimeter (11.81-inch) heights. It includes woody species that WSDOT intends for compacted, degraded urban highway roadsides: central-eastern United States-native, deciduous coralberry and fragrant sumac and evergreen west-coastal Oregon grape.

Rocky-soiled, steep roadsides jam augers, not spades and trowels, at 0- to 15-centimeter (0- to 5.91-inch) sample-collection depths and justify expensive, surface-applied, not soil-incorporated, worm castings.

Statistical Analysis System (SAS) 9.4's "randomized complete" block-designed PROC GLM keeps biomass, bulk density, plant survival, root length, shoot-growth index and soil carbon and nitrogen results.

Analysis locates soil-incorporated mean bulk density and total carbon and nitrogen respectively at under half, and 12 and 10 times greater than, soil-only and surface-applied treatments. It mentions insignificant differences from soil-incorporated treatments through "little if any mixing" of control and surface-applied amendments with "underlying native material" the first year after application. It notes compaction as the "dominant feature" even though non-level surfaces of "compacted and gravelly native material" net smaller volume measurements and larger calculated bulk densities.

Compacted degraded urban highway roadsides, unirrigated after transplant, offer fragrant sumac significantly declining survival in control, over amended, treatments even though "plant survival was typically high."

The third growing season, from September 2008 to September 2009, produces significant shoot growth while all soil-incorporated, surface-applied amendments "significantly improved" plant growth over control treatments.

Coralberry first and fragrant sumac second qualify as species with "greatest overall growth" while both quantify tenfold increases in biomass from worm castings over control treatments. Container-grown shrub- and tree-related research recommends pre-planting cuts or shaves to repress stem-girdling roots even though intact fragrant sumac roots relish all soil-incorporated surface-applied amendment zones. Consistent with redosier dogwood-related research, soil-incorporated amendments show "no significant positive benefits to plant growth" over surface-applied methods since all amendments support "acceptable growth and survival."

Soil-incorporated amendments transform compacted degraded urban highway roadsides into lively, loosened, lovely sites whose decompacted makeovers tender similar growth and survival trends trumpeted by surface-applied methods.

Department of Transportation (WSDOT) also considers Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) as a viable candidate for transforming compacted degraded urban highway roadsides via organic amendments; Oregon grape in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg state, southwestern Germany; June 20, 2009: H. Zell, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica) displays capability of transforming compacted degraded urban highway roadsides via organic amendments; fragrant sumac at Tyler Arboretum, Media, Delaware County, southeastern Pennsylvania; May 17, 2013: Jim, the Photographer, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/jcapaldi/8750304679/

Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) also considers Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) as a viable candidate for transforming compacted degraded urban highway roadsides via organic amendments; Oregon grape in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg state, southwestern Germany; June 20, 2009: H. Zell, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mahonia_aquifolium_002.JPG

For further information:

Bary, Andy; Hummel, Rita L.; and Cogger, Craig. November 2016. "Urban Highway Roadside Soils and Shrub Plantings Enhanced by Surface-Applied and Incorporated Organic Amendments." Arboriculture and Urban Forestry 42(6): 418-427.

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