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high volume planting systems, adapted to account for the critical factors identified in our previous <br />research. These questions are being investigated in experiments conducted on reclaimed Seneca Coal <br />Company land south of Hayden, CO. The preliminary study was conducted on the Seneca H-W mine with <br />aspen trees transplanted from the Seneca Yoast mine (Figure 1). This experiment is examining if standard <br />tree planting techniques and equipment used for machine planting of trees for farming, conservation, and <br />reforestation, as recommended by the state forest nurseries, are advantageous to the growth and survival <br />of aspen trees and serviceberry shrubs on mine reclamation sites. The method could be used as a cost- <br />effective method to reproduce woody perennial vegetation on large areas of reclaimed lands. The <br />experiment is being conducted on reclaimed sites on the Seneca Coal Company Yoast and IIW coal <br />mines. Surface mining activity has been discontinued at both mines and both sites are being re-vegetated. <br />0 <br />Figure 1. Map of study area, showing Seneca Coal Company IIW and Yoast plantings, south of <br />Hayden, CO. <br />Aspen and serviceberry were planted using standard landscape fabric designed for machine planting <br />as recommend by the Colorado State Forest Nursery. This experiment hand planted the trees and shrubs <br />and hand-laid the landscape fabric, using the same 1.8 m (6 ft) wide by 91 m (300 ft) rolls of landscape <br />fabric, and 1.5 m (5 ft) tree/shrub spacing within the row as used with machine planting. This particular <br />40 experiment was hand planted since the study was too small to warrant the economics of contracting for a