There is an ongoing effort to restore native forests and wildlife habitats on old surface coal mines in Appalachia. The Appalachian Reforestation Initiative has been in the works since 2004.
Cliff Drouet is a forester in the Office of Surface Mining in Lexington. In an interview with WEKU's Eastern Standard, he explained how they go about planting the new trees.
“Now we're planting native species. We get in there first with 'dozers with ripper shanks in the back and cross-rip it, it's like farming on steroids. Bust up that hard pan, hand plant bare-root native seedlings, one-year-old, they're probably 16 to 18 inches tall, no bigger than a pencil.”
Drouet said they try to plant about 700 trees per acre on an 8-foot-by-8-foot spacing.
He explained what types of trees are being used to restore these areas.
“In Appalachia, usually it's 85% hardwood, so in our hardwoods, red oak, white oak, hickory, persimmon, black cherry, wild plum, some chestnuts, some black walnuts.”
Drouet said the fruit and nut-bearing trees also help the local wildlife. The other 15% of trees are typically pine trees.
He said it is important to use these native species because in other parts of the South, things like kudzu spread rapidly and cause more problems than they help.
Hear more with forester Cliff Drouet coming up later this week on Eastern Standard on WEKU.
