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Sequestering carbon by land restoration and reforestation in Iceland
- Thread starter KarenRei
- Start date
3Victoria
Active Member
Bet TSLA
Active Member
Mycoremediation? Anything useful for Icelandic weather?
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/03/08/the-sacred-rivers-climate-project-reducing-climate-impacts-with-mycoremediation
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/03/08/the-sacred-rivers-climate-project-reducing-climate-impacts-with-mycoremediation
Took me a while to decode: it's myco-remediation, not my-core-mediation
Basically, akin to the bacterial immunization used by Karin on the clover seeds, but with mycorrhiza (fungi).
Anyway, in honor of plant-a-seed-day next week, I'm sending over some money for gas ... oh, wait
Wow, sorry you guys, I didn't notice all of your comments here! I had noticed some donations though - thank you guys!
It's still winter weather here, but I'm hopeful it'll start to warm up soon and melt the snow so I can get back to stringing up the fence. No COVID-19 risk when out working on the land! Gotta get that fence up and secure before the tree-eaters get unleashed. Once it's all good, I can get back to trees!
I had noticed some donations though - thank you guys!It's still winter weather here, but I'm hopeful it'll start to warm up soon and melt the snow so I can get back to stringing up the fence. No COVID-19 risk when out working on the land! Gotta get that fence up and secure before the tree-eaters get unleashed. Once it's all good, I can get back to trees!
If I could travel, I'd come visit and set up a tent on the land and build fence all day. Just need food once in a while.
Great way to be socially distant.
Great way to be socially distant.
Hi @KarenRei. Do you plan to resume posts about posts (fence posts, that is)? I have quite enjoyed following your project and adventure, hope it is still on track, and that you are retaining an edge in the battle against the neighboring sheep.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Don TLR
Active Member
I'll try to get back to posting in this thread at some point Some brief catching up:
Some brief catching up:- The force of those river flood waters must be insane. The spot where the fence runs up next to the river (near the waterfall on the west / seaward side of the property) snapped three posts off at their bases. Friggin' nuts. Will redo it stronger, and possibly with some ways to allow the netting to "tear off" of the posts when under extreme force.
- Finally found something that the sitka spruce isn't good at - tolerating our hurricane-force-wind winters. Tons of branch loss on them, including on the one big one. But I think most will survive - time will tell (it's a late start to spring here, so too soon to say). Probably will lose some, though, but the rest should grow back stronger. Once they get established, sitka spruce do really well here.
- Other spruce species seem to have done better. Those shade-loving white spruces in particular - they all look flawless.
- Most of the pines I think did pretty well, but there was some damage. The ones with more shelter did better than those with less shelter.
- The hardy deciduous species (willow, birch, cottonwood, rowan, alder, etc) seem to have done great and are just starting to leaf out.
- Too soon to tell how the oaks did. I'm not seeing any signs of leafing out yet, but the primary branches do (on visual inspection) appear to be alive.
- My lone western redcedar made it through its second winter unharmed. Hopefully this year it'll finally start growing.
- I keep randomly finding some trees of some species (mainly pines planted on difficult ground) that got uprooted by the winds, randomly as a walk around. But they're a significant minority of the total, and surprisingly a lot of them still look to be alive. Those pines have superb drought tolerance to be able to tolerate just sitting on the surface for so long.
- One or two fence posts on the east (valley-ward) side in the swampy ground right above the crumbling cliff are loose and need to be re-cemented.
- I've strung net on all of the poles (5 heavy reels of the stuff!). Barbed wire is halfway across (not as heavy, but really awkward to carry!). Right now I'm finishing up the landslide zone (wearing rubber boots because it's so soggy ). I was short one reel of net and two reels of barbed wire, but the donations this winter / spring paid for it.
- Saw fish in the river for the first time. Surprisingly large salmonids, maybe half a meter long. It's supposedly brown sea trout that swim up that river, but they looked more like salmon or maybe char. They were hanging out in the deep pool formed by the landslide. And the way that I found them was that I arrived on my land and a couple was illegally spearfishing there :Þ Thankfully the couple had just gotten there and not killed anything yet.
- Bumblebees are abundant (even though there's barely anything for them to eat yet). The birds are all returning to nest.
- A reasonable fraction of the "unhealthy trees" that didn't get planted last year and which I let overwinter on my trailer in a sheltered place seem to be leafing out this spring, which is good. All of my blue spruce and tamarack that I had potted-up to let get bigger before planting out are doing great. Lastly, I rooted about 50 cottonwoods, and had a 100% success rate, so hopefully by the time I'm done with the fence they'll have a well enough established root system to get planted out.
- The sheeple are just starting to be let out. Looks like the fence is getting shored up just in time
- Work-from-home ends this weekend. Back to work in person on Monday. We're going basically into an "almost life as normal" scenario, since we've basically wiped out COVID-19 (without lockdown / broad shutdowns of businesses, but lots of anti-transmission measures and extensive testing). Even small concerts will be starting back up.
You are fortunate to have a small mostly homogeneous population. That makes a big difference. We are like 35 different countries here. Some parts are sparsely populated and some very crowded.
Glad your trees are doing mostly well. Cottonwoods here are fast growing junk trees. Very hardy though. And the cotton they make! My A/C unit looks like a big fuzzy sock by the fall.
Glad your trees are doing mostly well. Cottonwoods here are fast growing junk trees. Very hardy though. And the cotton they make! My A/C unit looks like a big fuzzy sock by the fall.
I'm sure you've already done your research on fencing, however you can save yourself some pain by building heavy posts above the floodline then hanging some tear off netting below.
This terribly formatted website has very handy information.
https://www.afence.com/BekaertBrochure.html
The picture below describes the general layout. However I would also add some stays on the downriver side of the posts to protect them should there be an exceptionally high flood, and because the fence is normally going across the fall of the hills which can lead to the fence leaning downhill over time as stock lean on it.
Some additions, I wouldn't use a frame on the bottom portion, just netting is fine as it will tear off in a flood and wash away anyway. Hanging corrugated iron (aligned so the corrugations are in line with the water flow) instead of netting is even better as it tends to lift up during a flood and float on the water - so it can survive floods better. That said, it looks quite ugly.
Also, choose the heaviest steel posts and cable you can find. Ideally it should then last a lifetime and you'll only need to replace the hanging portion from time to time - a much more pleasant job.
Bet TSLA
Active Member
Good information on getting to Iceland this summer:
Iceland prepares to reopen to travelers. Here's how to get there on points this summer
Iceland prepares to reopen to travelers. Here's how to get there on points this summer
- I've strung net on all of the poles (5 heavy reels of the stuff!). Barbed wire is halfway across (not as heavy, but really awkward to carry!). Right now I'm finishing up the landslide zone (wearing rubber boots because it's so soggy
Both net and barbed wire between all the poles?
Unfortunately, building above the floodline has its own problems. The river runs close to a crumbling cliff, so if you move away from the river, the ground is made of large rocks atop shallow bedrock. Thankfully I don't need to bridge across the river
Yeah, there's a thread about the meetup here.
TMC Iceland Meetup 2020!
I'm not sure how many people will be coming - it'd be a small get-together (previously it was looking like there would be several dozen
). Tourist numbers in Iceland in general will be unusually low this summer.Net and one barbed wire top wire everywhere. In some places, bottom wires or additional top wires are needed, as well as other features sometimes (such as piling up large rocks to fill in gaps). Lots of work, but it's coming together
Brando
Active Member
You probably already know that tree "naturally protect each other against the wind".
united we stand, divided we fall
united we stand, divided we fall
I'm really hoping to get them to the point where they're big enough to "stand united"
The "easy" way would have been a thicket of only trees like birch which are bulletproof against our winters, but sheep loved to try to ruin that possibility.But with a canyon-side fence now...
Still working on the barbed wire, and still have to replace the snapped posts on one end and concrete in a pole on the other... but it's already a great start
Rain terminated my work early today, and has kept me away several days recently. And I was doing bottom wires and rocks to fill in the gaps due to the uneven landscape, which is slow work compared to top wires. But I'm now back to doing what should be the last big top wire run Even doing the top wires involves walking backwards on highly uneven, marshy ground while carrying a heavy reel of barbed wire outstretched on a pole and trying to not have it repeatedly snag your clothing... but its still easier than the bottom wires!I've got a number of other things I'm still trying to catch up on, but when I do, hopefully I can get back to posting photo updates. Heck, let's just add a handful of pics taken at random points... the snapped posts, the winter/wind damage to the big sitka spruce, and some unopened buds on one of the oaks.
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Meh, let's toss in a few more, taken at various points in the fence-building this year. Top one is the most recent, others are out of order. Most are self-explanatory. The reason the one reel of fencing is jam-packed full of debris was it had washed into the river over the winter and I had to fish it out and untangle a giant mess of wire Also, spiders have clearly decided that what I strung up wasn't sheep fencing, but rather a custom-built spider habitat
Top one is the most recent, others are out of order. Most are self-explanatory. The reason the one reel of fencing is jam-packed full of debris was it had washed into the river over the winter and I had to fish it out and untangle a giant mess of wire Also, spiders have clearly decided that what I strung up wasn't sheep fencing, but rather a custom-built spider habitat 
