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Hi Dave P. & All, Apr 14, 2013
The usgs article reflects an astonishing detachment from reality by
starting the first line of the Abstract with "Since the discovery of acid
rain in the 1970's..". Acidic precipitation was documented at least as early
as 1852 when it was described by Robert Angus Smith.
The question remains, has anyone demonstrated increased growth of forest
trees in response to application of Gypsum ? Or limestone for that matter.
Soil chemistry in natural profiles can be quite baffling because it can
resemble a 4-dimensional marble cake. About 1975 I was preparing to set up a
Ca orchard trial and sampled leaves of 40 or so trees in three orchards. In
one orchard, leaf Ca was all over the map, making it useless for a Ca trial
but conceivably informative for leaf Ca to soil Ca correlations. So the
following year I sampled soil from 0-100 cm in 10 cm increments and again
sampled leaves. For starters, the soil Ca of few adjacent layers was
correlated and the leaf Ca of years 1 & 2 were poorly correlated !
Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Patriquin" <patriqui@dal.ca>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>; "David & Alison Webster" <dwebster@glinx.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2013 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] tree biomass fuel ... calcium loss also critical in
NS
> Hi David & Alison,
>
> For an excellent overview of the forest calcium issue, see:
>
> Soil-Calcium Depletion Linked to Acid Rain and Forest Growth in the
> Eastern United States
>
> By Gregory B. Lawrence and T. G. Huntington
>
> available at
> http://ny.water.usgs.gov/pubs/wri/wri984267/
>
>
> Related studies have been done in Nova Scotia by Paul Arp & Co.
> See 2010 poster presentation
> Quantifying the impacts of biomass harvesting on nutrient budgets across
> Nova Scotia
> (Search x Google to bring up PDF)
>
> The current government/DNR appears to be sitting on the details which may
> contain some inconvenient truths related to possible use of SW Nova
> Scotia forests as chemical feedstocks.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Quoting David & Alison Webster <dwebster@glinx.com>:
>
>> Hi Dave P. & All, Apr 13, 2013
>> Was this effect of Ca on tree productivity established by experiment,
>> e.g. application of Gypsum, or by association ? Genuine Ca deficiency
>> is, as I recall, just about unknown apart from extreme conditions such
>> as Serpentine soils or solution culture.
>>
>> In an interesting experiment reported by Reich et al. (Ecology
>> Letters (2005) 8:811-818),14 tree species were grown for 30 years in
>> replicated plots of 'uniform' initial soil and a converse effect was
>> demonstrated; species with high Ca in their leaf litter significantly
>> increased soil Ca and soil pH.
>>
>> [BTW, soil pH usually increases as soil Ca increases (there is only
>> so much exchange capacity to go around) but the two can be manipulated
>> independently, e.g. Gypsum will increase soil Ca while having almost no
>> effect on pH.]
>>
>> Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Patriquin" <patriqui@DAL.CA>
>> To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>; "Mary Macaulay" <marymacaulay@hotmail.com>
>> Cc: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
>> Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 12:35 PM
>> Subject: Re: [NatureNS] tree biomass fuel ... calcium loss also critical
>> in NS
>>
>>
>>> In addition to concerns raised by the Nature article, a multi-authored
>>> paper published in the Policy Forum of Science in 2009 pointed out
>>> that there is a critical accounting error in the Kyoto Protocol that
>>> allows biomass energy to be treated as carbon neutral, regardless of
>>> the source. The error is very large for forest biomass.
>>>
>>> Searchinger. T.D. et al T.D. et al., 2009. Fixing a Critical Climate
>>> Accounting Error Science 23 October 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5952, pp.
>>> 527-528
>>>
>>> In addition, we should be concerned about calcium losses in NS. NS
>>> forests are the most or amongst the most intensively harvested in
>>> Canada, half or more of our soils by area are very calcium poor and
>>> highly susceptible to soil acidification, and the area is stressed by
>>> acid rain. There are worrying signs that for large areas of Nova
>>> Scotia (esp in the SW), significant declines in productivity or other
>>> effects of low calcium may be only 1 or 2 rotations away, if not
>>> already beginning to happen. Further, climatic warming can be expected
>>> to exacerbate these stresses, e.g., because the deciduous species
>>> expected to be favoured have higher calcium requirements than
>>> softwood.
>>>
>>> Intensive forest harvesting can only exacerbate this problem, both by
>>> direct removal of nutrients and though increased losses from leaching.
>>>
>>> Loss of salmon from many of our rivers is attributed to acid rain but
>>> also reflects reduced levels of calcium in the upland soils.
>>>
>>> Birds are also affected, see
>>> http://news.psu.edu/story/155790/2011/09/15/research-shows-soil-calcium-limits-forest-songbirds
>>>
>>> ...we have many reasons to be concerned about continued clearcutting
>>> in NS, and the obscurification of this issue by the current government.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Quoting Mary Macaulay <marymacaulay@hotmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> One of The Economist leaders this week warns against the trend toward
>>>> using forest biomass as fuel (they call it environmental lunacy).
>>>> It's a great article on page 71 for those who subscribe
>>>> or at this link
>>>> http://www.economist.com/news/business/21575771-environmental-lunacy-europe-fuel-future
>>>>
>>>> Please circulate this widely. It's nice to see this highly respected
>>>> journal calling an axe an axe.
>>>>
>>>> Mary Macaulay
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----
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>>> 04/10/13
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
> -----