Figure 23.— Eroded steep slope and natural revegetatlon of an old spoil pile along a haulroad of tfie Seminoe mines in Wyo- 

 ming. Reclamation practices depicted here generally conform to the 1969 Wyoming Open Cut Act, which predates the 

 stricter 1973 Wyoming Environmental Quality Act. Volunteer ricegrass and shrubs grow in moisture-bearing gullys and rills. 

 The base of this slope has been undercut by the drainage ditch of the haulroad and its instability and rate of erosion have 

 been increased. October 1978. 



selected for their adaptability over wide areas 

 and under adverse conditions. In the Western 

 States, many of these grasses have been se- 

 lected by the Soil Conservation Service's Plant 

 Materials Centers (Power, 1978, p. 530-531). The 

 U.S. Forest Service has established an arid land 

 shrub selection and experimental breeding pro- 

 gram (Monsen and Plummer, 1978, p. 172-173) in 

 addition to its long standing research on both 

 native and nonnative grasses for coal mine 

 reclamation (Bjugstad, 1978; B. Z. Richardson, 

 U.S. Forest Service, oral communication, 1980). 



The Plant Materials Centers make the selec- 

 tions for testing on the basis of each plant's ex- 

 pected widespread adaptability to the type of 

 site, Its persistence after establishment, and its 

 intended use, for example, wildlife or livestock 

 forage. Their evaluation technique is based on 

 monocultures of the tested plant; consequently, 

 the behavior of the plant when in competition 



with other species is unknown (Power, 1978, 

 p. 530-531). Although nonnative (exotic) plant 

 selections were found to produce significantly 

 more range forage (but providing less soil cover) 

 than the native plants (Packer and others, 1981), 

 the nonnative species have a tendency to be 

 displaced by native plants over time in all types 

 of western reclamation (P.E. Packer, U.S. Forest 

 Service, oral communication, 1979; Gillin, 1980, 

 p. 66). 



The Plant Materials Centers disseminate plant 

 selections through cooperating Federal and 

 State organizations to see that the plants get 

 into the commercial seed markets. The centers 

 also prepare lists of the seed sources for 

 distribution at the local level by the Soil Con- 

 servation Service. The Centers have collectively 

 published a summary handbook on plants suit- 

 able for reclamation work in arid and semiarid 

 regions (Thornburg, 1980). Some 200 plants. 



38 



