Brazil tested forest seeding; row method stored 155 tonnes biomass in 15 years

Since 2006, researchers working with the Instituto Socioambiental have restored 75 riparian forest sites along a 500km stretch of Mato Grosso, Brazil, using five different approaches, three direct seeding techniques (broadcast, hole and row), seedling planting, and natural regeneration. Fifteen years on, a study published in the Journal of Environmental Management found the results were far from equal. Row-seeding, in particular, pulled dramatically ahead of every other method for storing carbon above ground. Here's how a simple choice in planting technique ended up making such an outsized difference. After 15 years, row-seeded sites had accumulated roughly 155 tonnes of aboveground biomass per hectare, comfortably outpacing broadcast seeding, hole seeding, seedling planting and natural regeneration alike.A 15-year experiment across 75 riparian forests in BrazilThe study ‘Carbon stocks in riparian forests in the Amazonia-Cerrado transition over 15 years: Effects of restoration methods and edaphoclimatic factors’ tracked 75 sites in the Amazonia-Cerrado transition zone, all previously cleared for cattle pasture, sampling each one in 2017 and again in 2022 as part of a continuous 15-...