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Harry Ranney <br />March 1, 2002 <br />Page 3 <br />Herbaceous Productiou Sampling <br />Herbaceous production on the three reclaimed azeas and each reference azea will be determined by <br />hand clipping three 0,5 square meter quadrats along each randomly located point-intercept transect. <br />Plots will be placed to the right side of meter-marks 3, 16, and 37 (plots along the 25-meter point- <br />intercept transects conducted in the AVF Reference Area will be placed to the right side of meter- <br />marks 4, 11, and 18). The vegetation will be clipped by life form. The life form categories include <br />perennial grass, annual grass, perennial forb, undesirable perennial forb, and annual forb. <br />Additionally, alfalfa (Medicago sativa) and vegetation from the Horsetail family (Equisetum sp. and <br />Hippochaete sp.) and Rush family (Juncus sp.) will be sepazated for production data evaluation. <br />Clipped vegetation will be separated and weighed to the nearest 0.1 gram with the corresponding <br />"wet" weight recorded. The clipped vegetation will be oven dried and re-weighed as a field "dry' <br />weight. The dry weights will be converted to pounds per acre for each sampled azea. The three <br />production plots clipped along each transect will be averaged into a production value per transect <br />before being evaluated for success comparison and statistical evaluation purposes. Productivity on <br />each reclaimed area will be considered successful if the sample mean is at least 90 percent of the <br />productivity sample mean measured on each corresponding reference area. Fifteen transects will be <br />initially evaluated for success comparison and statistical evaluation purposes on the Dryland <br />Reference Area and each reclaimed unit. Ten transects will be initially evaluated for success <br />comparison and statistical evaluation purposes on the AVF Reference Area. The Snedecor-Cochran <br />sample adequacy formula (Equation 2) will be utilized to determine that an adequate number of <br />samples are collected. <br />