SBIR-STTR Award

Overabundance of fiber from young trees derived from first thinnings with little or no market is a serious problem for the timber industry as well as private landowners. Because of this, many private landowners fail to conduct appropriate timber management which in turn causes reductions in stand volume, increased risk of insect and/or disease from reduced stand vigor, reduced browse for wildlife and loss of income. Meanwhile, construction companies, mining industries, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are dealing with erosion issues on both a local and national level. This proposal addresses the idea which has the potential to provide erosion control through evaluating various inclusion rates of wood chips from first pine thinnings in finished compost which in turn is used as an erosion control measure. Each product, when used independently, has desirable characteristics that should have synergistic results when combined in the correct proportions. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this research is to determine the optimum proportion of chipped juvenile pine wood to include into compost so that the combination will maintain quality erosion and sediment control and grass establishment requirements, while decreasing the product cost and increasing the available supply for the construction and erosion control markets. APPROACH: The research for this project will be conducted on a small field scale rather than bench-top or in a laboratory situation. The use of outdoor plots and naturally occurring weather conditions provides actual and realistic environment in which to test the effectiveness of the various treatments. Seven treatments consisting of various mixtures of compost/mulch and a bare soil (control) duplicated and evaluated for runoff and soil erosion control effectiveness as well as vegetation establishment. Test plots will include 1) Bare soil (control), 2) 100% : 0% compost/mulch 3) 75% : 25% compost/mulch 4) 50% : 50% compost/mulch 5) 25% : 75% compost/mulch 6) 0% : 100% compost/mulch 7) Seeded straw mat We hypothesize a mixture of 50:50 compost/mulch will work the best but would like to see a lower inclusion of compost from a strictly economic standpoint as the mulch normally costs less to produce. We will use multivariate analysis in a randomized complete block design to test our hypothesis. To test for differences among the means at the 0.05 probability level, we will use Duncans multiple range test

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Overabundance of fiber from young trees derived from first thinnings with little or no market is a serious problem for the timber industry as well as private landowners. Because of this, many private landowners fail to conduct appropriate timber management which in turn causes reductions in stand volume, increased risk of insect and/or disease from reduced stand vigor, reduced browse for wildlife and loss of income. Meanwhile, construction companies, mining industries, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are dealing with erosion issues on both a local and national level. This project addresses the further development of using wood chips from first pine thinnings as a mulch material mixed 2:1 compost/mulch) for a superior erosion control product to traditional industry standards. This research will explore improving the erosion control performance and determining limitations of the 2:1 compost/mulch blanket, expanding the market potential and applications for the new product and developing new evaluation and design tools to allow engineers, landscape architects and erosion control plan writers to easily adopt this new technology. OBJECTIVES: The research described within this project attempts to provide a better solution to erosion stemming from construction, mining and road building through the development of a new product of compost blended with juvenile wood fiber which is currently wasted. This research will provide a new superior product to industry standards for erosion control, as well as serve as an incentive for landowners to thin timber stands. Through an industry partnership, we will have a national network for product distribution that will ensure its immediate absorption into the erosion and sediment control market. APPROACH: This research will be conducted both in large scale laboratory as well as field testing facilities in conjunction with three major universities. San Diego State University Soil Erosion Research Lab Facility (SDSU SERL) in San Diego, CA will be assisting with their indoor tilting soil beds so a variety of slopes can be tested under controlled parameters. Each treatment will be installed on tilting beds 3 m wide x 10 m long and tested on 3 to 1 and 2 to 1 slopes and tested separately on compacted clay, sand, and silt loam soil with a soil depth of six inches. Triple replication will be used throughout to ensure statistical variations are minimized. Auburn University personnel will be working at Compost Wizard's outdoor testing laboratory in Athens Georgia to test replicated plots under real life weather and soil conditions. A randomized complete block design to determine treatment placement among the test plots will be used. Each treatment will be replicated three times and the erosion control blankets will be installed according to manufacturers specifications, state installation specifications, or by certified installers. The pine mulch/compost blanket will be sized and specified according to American Association of State Highway Transportation Official (AASHTO) specs for compost erosion control blankets. Ohio State University will utilize all results data in the creation of an engineering erosion control design tool. The user friendly design tool will allow the user to input real data results for the technologies tested in this experiment. This will allow construction engineers to evaluate between erosion control blanket technologies under a variety of hypothetical site and environmental parameters. User input parameters will include: rainfall rate and intensity, rainfall duration, slope length, slope degree, infiltration rate of tool, water holding capacity of tool, runoff rate to technology, runoff rate from technology, and erosion control potential of tool.