#794: Salt Tolerant Willows Help Oil Sands Reclamation
Willows can play an important role in many types of land reclamation.
They are among the first plants to appear in forest succession.
And they can detoxify the soil.
Syncrude is working with Richard KrYgier of the Canadian Forest Service to find willows that will tolerate high levels of salt.
After screening over a hundred different varieties, Richard found 15 native willows for his research trial.
RICHARD KRYGIER: It’s a research trial, so we’ve got 15 different varieties of willows. There’s 6 species, so there’s more than one variety within a species. And it’s set up in a standard scientific process where we’ve got replication. And we’ve got the willows planted right at the edge of Syncrude’s Base Mine Lake, which is the large end pit lake at the south side of their plant facility north of Fort McMurray. And then planted right up the slope, so there’s various levels of sodium in the soil as you move up the slope. And so we’re testing to see how the willows perform at the edge where’s there’s high sodium and higher up the slope where there’s less sodium.
Richard Kyigier says the willows are into their third growing season and all appear to be doing well in the salty soil.
Thanks today to SYNCRUDE
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Syncrude
Program Date: 2016-07-07