Beachgrass

SUCCESSION ON A COAL MINE GOB PILE STABILIZED
WITH ‘CAPE’ AMERICAN BEACHGRASS

by

Robert Glen­non, Plant Mate­ri­als Specialist
USDA, Nat­ur­al Resources Con­ser­va­tion Service
Har­ris­burg, Pennsylvania

and

Sam DePue, Dis­trict Conservationist
USDA, Nat­ur­al Resources Con­ser­va­tion Service
Prince­ton, West Virginia

Abstract

Amer­i­can beach­grass was plant­ed in an aban­doned coal refuse pile in March, 1991 to cool the sur­face, add organ­ic mat­ter to the sub­strate, and trap seeds from the adja­cent plant com­mu­ni­ties. After four grow­ing sea­sons, the area has been col­o­nized by indige­nous species. Both forbs and woody plants have estab­lished them­selves. On the edge of the pile close to a wood­ed area, there is an aver­age of 41 stems per 9 square meter plot. Rag­weed and joe-pye weed are the prin­ci­ple forbs. black­ber­ry and smooth sumac are the prin­ci­ple woody species. The beach­grass is still present at an 26 per­cent sur­vival rate of the plants estab­lished with an aver­age den­si­ty of 6.6 culms per estab­lished plant at a 0.6‑meter spac­ing. In the cen­ter of the pile 30 to 45 meters away from the wood­ed area, there is an aver­age of 14 stems per 9 square meter plot. Stick­seed and rag­weed are the prin­ci­ple forbs. Black birch is the only woody species. The beach­grass is present at a 57 per­cent sur­vival rate with 18 stems per plant.

Back­ground

Coal min­ing and pro­cess­ing pro­duces a large amount of unused over­bur­den, also referred to as refuse or gob. This refuse presents an obsta­cle in the recla­ma­tion process in that it is coarse, droughty, infer­tile mate­r­i­al often con­cen­trat­ed in rel­a­tive­ly small areas. In large expan­sive strip min­ing oper­a­tions, it can be spread out in the floor of the reclaimed strip and cov­ered with soil mate­r­i­al that can be read­i­ly reveg­e­tat­ed. In deep min­ing, the area avail­able for spread­ing the refuse is lim­it­ed and the soil mate­r­i­al to place on top is scarce. Alter­na­tive reveg­e­ta­tion meth­ods for these areas are need­ed that do not require spread­ing the refuse or top­soil to cov­er it.

Intro­duc­tion

The study area is a Soil Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice Rur­al Aban­doned Mine Pro­gram (RAMP) site locat­ed in McDow­ell Coun­ty in south­ern West Vir­ginia. The site had been aban­doned for more than twen­ty years. Most of the area dis­turbed by roads and oth­er grad­ing had been reclaimed in the 1980’s. Those areas had been seed­ed to a mix­ture of tall fes­cue, sericea les­pedeza, and red­top; and had an excel­lent stand of veg­e­ta­tion that was being col­o­nized by plants from the adja­cent wood­ed area. The refuse pile was a 2‑hectare sire locat­ed at the north­ern end of the site out­side the mine open­ing. Half of the refuse pile was a 1:1 slope; the remain­der was flat. When the site was reclaimed, there was no land avail­able to spread the refuse or soil to cov­er it. Engi­neer­ing esti­mates were $80,000 to spread and cov­er the site f it was pos­si­ble. A small test plant­i­ng had demon­strat­ed that ‘Cape’ Amer­i­can beach­grass had the poten­tial to sur­vive and fos­ter col­o­niza­tion of the site.

Mate­ri­als and Methods

A con­tract was award­ed to a pri­vate firm to reveg­e­tate the pile with ‘Cape’ Amer­i­can beach­grass plant­ed at 2 culms per hole spaced 0.6 meter apart. The culms were grown by the Cape May, New Jer­sey Plant Mate­ri­als Cen­ter; dug and stored in 10^o Cesius cold stor­age until ship­ping; shipped in 12 hours to the site; and stored in cold stor­age until plant­i­ng. Holes were dug with hand spades, fer­til­ized with 30 grams of Osmo­cote 10–10-10 slow release fer­til­iz­er, the 2 culms placed in the hole and the hole closed and packed by hand. Plants in alter­nate rows were off­set half a spac­ing and the rows were spaced 0.6 meters apart. No sup­ple­men­tal fer­til­iz­er or irri­ga­tion was pro­vid­ed. The plant­i­ng was done in March, 1991. Eval­u­a­tion of the beach­grass per­for­mance has been done twice a grow­ing sea­son each year. Eval­u­a­tion of the suc­ces­sion was done in June, 1994 and 3 adja­cent 0.6 by 15 meter plots adja­cent to the wood­ed area and 3 in the cen­ter of the pile.

Data-Edge of Pile-Woody Plants
Species	Plants per Plot	Aver­age Height (cm)
Black­ber­ry (Rubus alleghe­niesis)	11.1	42
Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra)	6.7	117
Trum­pet-Creep­er (Camp­sis rad­i­cans)	4.1	33
Sug­ar Maple (Acer sac­cha­rum)	1	21
Shag­bark Hick­o­ry (Carya ova­ta)	1	120
Black Cher­ry (Prunus seroti­na)	0.7	150
Sum­mer Grape (Vitis aes­ti­valis)	0.3	90
Sycamore (Pla­tanus occi­den­tal­is)	0.3	9
Total	25.7

Data-Edge of Pile-Herba­ceous Plants
Species	Plants per Plot	Aver­age Height (cm)
Rag­weed (Ambrosia biden­ta­ta)	5.3	3
Joe-Pye Weed (Eupa­to­ri­um fis­tu­lo­sum)	4.7	39
Gold­en­dod (Sol­ida­go sp.)	2.7	9
Milk­weed (Ascle­p­sis syr­i­a­ca)	1.7	27
Stick­seed (Lap­pu­la echi­na­ta)	1.3	30
Birds­foot Tre­foil (Lotus cor­nic­u­la­tus)	0.7	12
Broomsedge (Andro­pogon vir­gini­cus)	0.7	9
Dan­de­lion (Tarax­acum offic­i­nale)	0.3	21
Total	17.3
Beach­grass (Ammophil­ia bre­viligu­la­ta)	6.6
	6.6 stems/plant

Data-Cen­ter of Pile-Woody Plants
Species	Plants per Plot	Aver­age Height (cm)
Black Birch (Betu­la lenta)	0.3	15
Total	0.3	15

Data-Cen­ter of Pile-Herba­ceous Plants
Species	Plants per Plot	Aver­age Height (cm)
Stick­seed (Lap­pu­la echi­na­ta)	8.3	33
Rag­weed (Ambrosia biden­ta­ta)	4	3
Broomsedge (Andro­pogon vir­gini­cus)	1	9
Birds­foot Tre­foil (Lotus cor­nic­u­la­tus)	0.7	9
Total	14
Beach­grass (Ammophil­ia bre­viligu­la­ta)	14.3
	18 stems/plant

Con­clu­sions

Amer­i­can beach­grass was plant­ed on a gob pile that had not been col­o­nized by indige­nous veg­e­ta­tion over its 20 year his­to­ry. With­in 4 years, the plant­ed area adja­cent to the woods had been col­o­nized by 43 plants per 9 square meter plot. The area in the cen­ter of the plot 30 to 45 meters from the woods had been col­o­nized by 14 plants per 9 square meter plot. The beach­grass died out as the col­o­niz­ing plants dom­i­nat­ed the area. Plant­i­ng Amer­i­can beach­grass is an effec­tive method of mod­i­fy­ing the sur­face of a gob pile to allow native plants to col­o­nize the pile.

1991 COSTS
CAPE AMERICAN BEACHGRASS
FOR GOB PILE REVEGETATION

Large piles of over­bur­den left from coal pro­cess­ing oper­a­tions pose dif­fi­cult and expen­sive recla­ma­tion chal­lenges. Costs for grad­ing, top­soil­ing and seed­ing these ‘GOB’ piles aver­age $30,000 per acre. A two-acre site in south­ern West Vir­ginia was sta­bi­lized in place with ‘Cape’ Amer­i­can Beach­grass for $3,750 per acre.

Costs per acre include:

180 man­hours at $10 per manhour	$1800
12,000 plant­i­ng units at .10 per unit (plant­ed at a 2 foot x 2 foot spacing)	1200
750 pounds of 13–13-13 osmo­cote fer­til­iz­er (1 ounce per plant) at $1 per pound	750
TOTAL	$3750

Pre­vi­ous plot research indi­cates the plants will spread at a rate of one foot per year and trap lit­ter and seed from adja­cent native plant com­mu­ni­ties. Pio­neer species become read­i­ly estab­lished once the plants have spread and seed is trapped in place.

Sub­mit­ted by:

Robert J. Glennon Plant Mate­ri­als Specialist USDA, Soil Con­ser­va­tion Service Suite 340 One Cred­it Union Place Har­ris­burg, PA 17110–2993

Read: Beach Grass: Bring­ing the Seashore to the Mountains