Effects of Non-Industrial Wood Ash (NIWA) Applications on Soil Chemistry and Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum, Marsh.) Seedling Growth in an Acidic Sugar Bush in Central Ontario
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Research Highlights: In central Ontario, large quantities of non-industrial wood ash (NIWA) are generated and could be used as a forest soil amendment to counteract soil acidification and base cation depletion caused by decades of acid deposition. Background and Objectives: The properties and biogeochemical responses of NIWA have not been thoroughly explored, and field experiments must be conducted before NIWA can be regulated as a forest soil amendment in Ontario. Materials and Methods: In this study, soil chemistry and sugar maple (Acer saccharum, Marsh.) seedling growth and chemistry were measured in an acidic sugar bush over twelve months following a NIWA field experiment. Plots (2 m by 2 m) were established with sugar maple, white pine (Pinus strobus L.), and yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis Britt.) NIWA treatments applied at rates of 6 Mg ha−1 along with untreated control plots. Results: Ash chemistry varied significantly among species and yellow birch ash generally had much higher metal concentrations compared with other species. Following ash application, significant increases in soil pH and calcium and magnesium concentrations were observed, however the level of response varied by treatment. Foliar concentrations of base cations in sugar maple seedlings significantly increased in ash treatments and there was no significant treatment effect on foliar metal concentrations or seedling growth. In roots and shoots, concentrations of several metals (manganese, aluminum, iron, boron, arsenic, cadmium, zinc, copper, lead, chromium, and nickel) increased after ash application, however response was most pronounced in yellow birch ash. Conclusions: These results suggest that application of NIWA can counteract the lasting effects of acid rain by increasing soil pH and base cation concentrations, as well as increasing sugar maple seedling foliar nutrient concentrations, but ashes from species with high metal contents may also increase metal availability to vegetation, at least in the short-term.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".