This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: grasslands: CO2 and rainwater capture

Regarding rainwater capture, my personal observation is that animals play a
big part. We freely allow moles to burrow away in our non-native, mowed
bluegrass. It is just full of tunnels. We also apply no chemicals, so it is
full of grubs and worms. You can pour a 5 gallon bucket of water on it when
it is dry, and it disappears immediately with a lot of gurgling noise.
Imagine the rainwater capture in a prairie dog colony!

At 06:43 AM 8/26/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Lee
>	Thie following qoute is from:
>
>Rice, Todd, Blair, Seastedt, Ramundo, and Wilson. 1998. Belowground
>biology and processes. pp. 244-264 in Knapp, Briggs, Hartnett, and Collins
>(eds.) Grassland dynamics: long-term ecological research in tallgrass
>prairie. Oxford University Press.
>
>	"Vegetation type also greatly affects soil organic matter amounts.
>In a given area, grasslands produce a greater accumulation of soil organic
>matter than forests under similar climatic conditions (Seastedt and Knapp
>1993). The greater soil organic matter content in prairie is due partly to
>the greater allocation of C belowground compared with forests."
>
>The Seastedt and Knapp (1993) reference is:
>
>Consequences of non-equilibrium resource availability across multiple time
>scales: the transient maxima hypothesis. American Naturalist 141:621-633.
>
>	I don't know offhand any reference to help you with your rainwater 
>infiltration question, however a quick guess on my part would be that soil
>type would have a far greater influence on infiltration, regardless of
>the vegetation growing on it.  For example, sandy soils should absorb
>rainfall very well no matter what is growing on them, while clay soils
>that are already wet will probably absorb very little.  But another
>possibility that is worth pondering relates to the above qoute.  If
>infiltration is positively related to organic matter content, then soils
>with relatively high organic matter (i.e. grassland soils) should have
>relatively high infiltration rates.  Hope this helps.
>
>Steve
>
>
> On Tue, 24 Aug 1999, Lee Stone wrote:
>
>> Could anyone speak to the following questions?
>> 
>> Is it true that praires/grasslands are 
>> 
>> the most efficient/effective plant community for the removal of CO2 from
the
>> air, and 
>> they also are the best plant community for capturing rainwater and
moving it
>> into the ground?
>> 
>> If these things are true, where is it written?  Any help is appreciated
>> 
>> Lee Stone
>> 
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
>message text UNSUBSCRIBE PRAIRIE
>
>
Bob Wernerehl
Sweeny Road
Barneveld, WI 53507
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PRAIRIE
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index