Home Study Course in Tree Rehabilitation
The importance of trees to land management cannot be overstated. Often in the past they have been seen as competing for valuable land space and felled indiscriminately. Over clearing of trees can lead to salinity problems and numerous forms of erosion and land slips. As we have become more familiar with their vital role in ecological processes, retention and selective planting of trees has been widely acknowledged, in improving farm viability and ultimately production.
COURSE STRUCTURE
There are ten lessons are as follows...
1. Approaches To Land Rehabilitation: The Importance of Trees, Understanding plants, Understanding Plant Identification, Land Management Programs, Biodiversity, Soil Degradation, Erosion, Salinity, Soil Acidification and Rehabilitation.
2. Ecology Of Soils And Plant Health: Biomass, The Ecosystem, Indigenous Plants, Creating Habitat Corridors for Wildlife, Design Considerations, Edge Effects, Soils, Soil Physical Characteristics, Soil Chemical Characteristics, Improving Soils, Plant Nutrition, The Nutrient Elements, Fertilizers, Diagnosis of Nutritional Problems and Pests and Diseases.
3. Introduction To Seed Propagation Techniques: Seed Propagation, Difficult Seeds, Sowing your Seeds, Containers for Propagation, The Bog Method, Quality Control, Propagation Systems, Sources of Seed and Information.
4. Propagation And Nursery Stock: Asexual Propagation, Types of Cuttings, Stock Plants, Hormone Treatments, Nursery Hygiene, Propagating Mixes, Potting Media, Maintaining Plants in Pots and Information on Greenhouses.
5. Dealing With Chemical Problems: Soil Contamination, Symptoms of Chemical Contamination, Rehabilitating Damaged Soils, Growing Plants on Contaminated Soils, Rehabilitating a Building Site, Soil Chemical Composition and Plant Growth.
6. Physical Plant Effects On Degraded Sites: Pioneer Plants, Site Protection, Designing and Planting a Firebreak, Stormwater, Waterlogging and Drainage, Soil Compaction.
7. Plant Establishment Programs: What to Plant Where, Climate, Plant Selection Criteria, Planting, Plant Protection Methods
8. Hostile Environments: Planning Rehabilitation Projects, Coping with Dry Conditions, Mulch, Weed Management, Trees and Large Shrubs that Tolerate Salt, Salt Tolerant Plant Species.
9. Plant Establishment Care: Planting Procedures, Water and Plant Growth, Inspecting Plant Health, Examining the Plant, Examining the Local Environment, Methods of Inspection, Prioritising Problems, Research.
10. Rehabilitating Degraded Sites: Environmental Assessment and Audits, Implementing a Land Rehabilitation Management Program, Determining a Program and Replanting.
AIMS
- Compare different approaches to land rehabilitation, to determine strengths and weaknesses of alternative options on a site to be rehabilitated.
- Determine techniques to maximise plant development in land rehabilitation situations.
- Explain the different ways of producing seedling trees for land rehabilitation purposes.
- Determine appropriate plant establishment programs.
- Develop procedures to care for plants, during establishment in an hostile environment.
- Manage the rehabilitation of degraded soil.
- Explain the effect of plants on improving a degraded site, both physically and chemically.
Duration: 100 hours
WHAT THE COURSE COVERS
Here are just some of the things you will be doing:
-Determine different examples of land degradation on sites you visit.
-Explain different reasons for land rehabilitation, including: Salination, Erosion, Mining, Grazing, Vegetation harvesting, Pests, Reduction of biodiversity, Soil contamination and Urbanisation.
-Compare the effectiveness of different policy approaches to land rehabilitation by different agencies and organisation, including: Different levels of government, Mining companies, Developers and Conservation groups (i.e. tree planting bodies, landcare groups).
-Develop a risk analysis for a specified site to be rehabilitated, by determining a variety of plant health problems which may impact on the success of plant establishment.
-Analyse the failure of plants to grow successfully on a visited land rehabilitation site.
-Develop a procedure to enhance the success rate of land rehabilitation plantings on a degraded site you visit.
-Describe the use of mulches, to maximise plant condition in a specified land rehabilitation tree planting project.
-Explain different processes of establishing seedlings on land rehabilitation sites, including: tubestock nursery production, direct seeding and pre-germinated bare rooted seedlings.
-Determine factors which affect the viability of establishing different species of plant seedlings, from different plant families; on a specific degraded site.
-Compare the benefits of buying plants with propagating and growing on plants for planting a site (with reference to: costs, plant quality, local suitability & management).
-Prepare production schedules for a plant species, using different propagation techniques, summarising all important tasks from collection of seed to planting out of the tubestock.
-Calculate the cost of production for a tubestock plant, according to the production schedule you develop.
-Estimate the differences in per plant establishment costs, for small container grown plants, compared with direct seeding methods, for planting on a degraded site.
-Describe different methods of planting trees for rehabilitation purposes.
-Describe different plant establishment techniques, including: wind protection, frost protection, pest control, water management and weed management.
-Describe an appropriate method for preparing soil for planting, at a proposed land rehabilitation site in your locality.
-Evaluate plant establishment techniques used by different land rehabilitation programs inspected by you at least twelve months after planting was carried out.
-Determine the needs of plants after planting, on two different proposed land rehabilitation sites.
-Describe different, efficient ways, of catering to the needs of large numbers of plants after planting.
-Collect pressed specimens or photographs of twenty trees for a herbarium of suitable trees for rehabilitation, and including information on the culture and care of each tree.
-Describe different types of soil degradation in your locality.
-Determine the risk factors involved in soil degradation, relevant to your locality.
-Compare two different alternative methods of treating each of three different soil degradation problems identified which you inspect.
-Develop an assessment form to use for evaluating the sensitivity of a site to land degradation.
-Evaluate a site showing signs of degradation, selected by you, using the assessment form you develop.
-Plan a rehabilitation program for the degraded site you evaluated, including *a two year schedule of work to be completed; *list of quantity and type of materials required; *approximate cost estimates.
-Explain the effect different plant species may have resisting soil degradation.
-Explain how different plants can have different impacts upon the chemistry of their environment, including both air and soil.
-Evaluate the significance of a group of plants, to the nature of the microclimate in which you find them growing.
-Compare the appropriateness of different plant species for different degraded sites.
-Determine plant varieties, suited to different degradation situations.
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