A Community Led Wood Ash Recycling Program to Restore Forest Nutrition in Muskoka, Ontario

Uploaded by vmc on 02/12/2023

Tags: Nutrients  

Attachments: Watmoug.srt (39KB) Slide10.jpeg (378KB)

This was presented by Shaun Watmough as a part of a series of contributed talks from the 2022 FEMC Annual Conference. To learn more about the conference, visit: https://www.uvm.edu/femc/cooperative/conference/2022. Almost a century of acidic deposition combined with increasing pressures for forest harvesting have depleted nutrient stocks in soils over large parts of eastern North America. Wood ash has been used for decades in some parts of the world as a mechanism to increase soil fertility, but in Ontario, Canada, wood ash is classified as a waste product and cannot be applied without a permit and so most wood ash is landfilled. Over the past five years a community led wood ash recycling program has been initiated in Muskoka, Ontario. This program actively engages the community in "ash drives" to provide ash for field trials, provides public outreach, and supports ongoing research studies that are needed to identify the benefits and potential harms associated with wood ash additions and to allow wood ash to be reclassified as a fertilizer rather than a waste product. This presentation outlines the challenges and benefits of the program and reports on early results from field trials.