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Harry Ranney <br />January 22, 2004 <br />Page 3 <br />Herbaceous Production Sampling <br />Herbaceous production samples on the rivo reclaimed areas and the Dryland Reference area will be <br />collected in June of 2004. Herbaceous production will be determined by hand clipping three 0.5 <br />square meter quadrats along each randomly located point-intercept transect. Plots will be placed to <br />the right side ofineter-marks 3, 18, and 44. The vegetation will be clipped by life form. The life form <br />categories include perennial grass, annual grass, perennial forb, undesirable perennial forb, and <br />annual forb. Additionally, alfalfa (Medicago sativa) will be separated for evaluation of production <br />data. Clipped vegetation will be separated and weighed to the. nearest 0.1 gram with the <br />corresponding "Duet" weight recorded. The clipped vegetation wii] be oven dried and re-weighed as <br />afield "dry" weight. The dry weights will be converted to pounds per acre for each sampled area. <br />The three production plots clipped along each transect will be averaged into a production value per <br />transect before they are evaluated for success comparison and statistical evaluation. 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 <br />initially be evaluated for success comparison and statistical evaluation purposes on the Dryland <br />Reference Area and both reclaimed units. The Snedecor-Cochran sample adequacy formula <br />(Equation 2) will be utilized to evaluate whether an adequate number of samples are collected. <br />• <br />Post Mining Success Demonstration <br />Post-mining demonstration of revegetation success for vegetative cover and herbaceous production <br />within the reclaimed areas will be assessed through use of the One-Sample T-Test (;/+quation 3). <br />This statistical testis used only when the sample mean for the reclaimed area is less than 90 percent <br />of the mean value for the reference area. <br />(3) <br />t~= g-x <br />s., <br />Where: <br />t~ = Calculated t value <br />Q = 90°/a of the standard <br />x = Bond release block sample mean <br />sx = Standard en or of the mean (s/fin) <br />s = Sample standard deviation <br />n = Sample size <br />f~J <br />