4 ms·

One thing makes me curious. Here in Carpathians, if you leave unmaintained plot of land, it will turn into forest by itself in 20 years. First it gets grown ove

by rini17 10y ago

One thing makes me curious. Here in Carpathians, if you leave unmaintained plot of land, it will turn into forest by itself in 20 years. First it gets grown over by blackberries, wild roses and other thorny bushes (birds excrement the seeds everywhere). Few years later, between the bushes trees (like maple) will grow from seeds brought in by wind. You can't plant trees directly into the grass, they don't compete well with it and prefer growing between the bushes instead. Why apparently noone in the UK realized that there's easier more natural way?

douche 10y ago
I've seen the same phenomenon in New England. If you stop mowing a field for five years, within twenty you'll have a young wood lot. Clear-cut forest grows back even faster - as you said, two-three years of blackberries, then hardwood whips will come back from the seed dormant on the ground or the old stumps, and grow up into harvestable timber again in short order. Unless the logging companies are trying to grow a piece back with something that wouldn't naturally grow, there's rarely a need to replant. I would suppose that in this situation, the landscape is too devastated for the natural process to quickly recolonize the area. With so much open pit/strip mining, the old topsoil is stripped away,so all of that residual seed that would otherwise spring up no longer is present, and the soil present is far less welcoming to any wind-blown or animal-deposited seed.
pacaro 10y ago
This is pretty well known in the UK. See, for example, the "Rothamsted Broadbalk and Geescroft Wilderness Experiment" [1] which was started in 1880. I suspect that the critical difference here is that the landscape was blighted by a century or more of open cast mining and heavy industry [1] http://www.era.rothamsted.ac.uk/Wilderness http://www.era.rothamsted.ac.uk/Wilderness
pjc50 10y ago
Have you considered the possibility that people know what they're doing and have not embarked on multi-million pound project without realising how trees work? By the sound of it, the land has been out of use for a while and had not already grown back. Probably due to lack of nearby trees to seed from?
pjc50 10y ago
Have you considered the possibility that people know what they're doing and have not embarked on multi-million pound project without realising how trees work? By the sound of it, the land has been out of use for a while and had not already grown back. Probably due to lack of nearby trees to seed from?
ac29 10y ago
Did you look at the area that is trying to be restored? This is not just an "unmaintained plot of land", these are open-pit coal mines [0]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/AtjYk17.jpg https://i.imgur.com/AtjYk17.jpg (rehosted, but it is the first picture in the linked article)

by rini17 10y ago

douche 10y ago

I've seen the same phenomenon in New England. If you stop mowing a field for five years, within twenty you'll have a young wood lot. Clear-cut forest grows back even faster - as you said, two-three years of blackberries, then hardwood whips will come back from the seed dormant on the ground or the old stumps, and grow up into harvestable timber again in short order. Unless the logging companies are trying to grow a piece back with something that wouldn't naturally grow, there's rarely a need to replant. I would suppose that in this situation, the landscape is too devastated for the natural process to quickly recolonize the area. With so much open pit/strip mining, the old topsoil is stripped away,so all of that residual seed that would otherwise spring up no longer is present, and the soil present is far less welcoming to any wind-blown or animal-deposited seed.

pacaro 10y ago

This is pretty well known in the UK. See, for example, the "Rothamsted Broadbalk and Geescroft Wilderness Experiment" [1] which was started in 1880. I suspect that the critical difference here is that the landscape was blighted by a century or more of open cast mining and heavy industry [1] http://www.era.rothamsted.ac.uk/Wilderness http://www.era.rothamsted.ac.uk/Wilderness

pjc50 10y ago

Have you considered the possibility that people know what they're doing and have not embarked on multi-million pound project without realising how trees work? By the sound of it, the land has been out of use for a while and had not already grown back. Probably due to lack of nearby trees to seed from?

pjc50 10y ago

ac29 10y ago

Did you look at the area that is trying to be restored? This is not just an "unmaintained plot of land", these are open-pit coal mines [0]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/AtjYk17.jpg https://i.imgur.com/AtjYk17.jpg (rehosted, but it is the first picture in the linked article)