Help...what would be the cost planting trees?

First, what is your country?

Planting hemp is always a good idea, very profitable, just ask the Dutch.

Sir

Trees for planting can be produced at low costs by using inexperienced labour. Nurseries can be set up on the edges of the remainder of natural tree groups and distributed or replanted from there.

Planting alien plants may not always be desirable and a thorough investigation should be done before planting commences.

The cause of the original deforestation should also be determined. replacing trees with trees that will be removed again will not do either.

Slightly more info would be helpful but in this case mentioning the country can be omitted as long as the weather type and circumstances is given.

A green future to You and Your country.

If it was a government public works type project in the US a few things guarantee it would not be cheap. 1. Labor unions would oppose any such projects not being funded at prevailing wage rates (so democrats would oppose it). 2. landscape contractors, developers, nurseries, and building industry lobbyist would oppose any works done by the government in house that were not put out to bid for private contracts (so republicans would oppose it). The idea of public works being done by cheap unskilled labor would not go well in a time when the building industry is laying off so many people, particularly in the west, and since the west is where all the available land is... so now you need to use prevailing wage rates and assume a standard government mark up and profit margin. Prevailing wages in the the poorer areas of California, where the land would be cheap, would be about $31.99 for a landscaper, and you can have approximately 2 unskilled laborers for every 4 skilled at a rate of 26.31 unskilled labor. Figure about $1.00 more for the more expensive areas.

However, if you are going to do minor works in Us forests, usually you won't get much opposition since the people who would oppose you don't want to go plant one tree in the middle of the sequoia national forest, where transportation cost would cost more than the labor. However, i suspect you don't want to plant trees in those areas far away from labor and materials resources like the middle of Montana, where they already have a ton of trees.

Removing trees that will be removed again could be an answer. If they are removed to make things to keep and use (furniture, houses) that have a long life, much of the carbon stays sequestered.

But the gains only happen if we keep re-planting after harvesting.

Most trees stop growing much once they become 'adult'. And when they start getting older they do, like people and animals, start having health issues. Harvesting before they start rotting in place for 'long term use' makes a lot of sense, as it also allows planting of young trees.

Choosing the 'correct species' is a real question. Yes, we don't want invasive plants. Normally ones that are native to the area or have been historically acclimated are appropriate.

But how do you find the ones with the best O2 respiration and carbon retention?

Since you mentioned USCCC, I'm assuming you live in the US. Most (maybe all?) states have land grant universities with agricultural extension programs (that have frequently been intermingled with state and county programs). The bottom line is that most of these will provide advice about the correct species for your area(s) and will tell you where to obtain them economically. Some will even provide the seedlings. As a youngster I helped plant several thousand free loplolly pines as part of an erosion control project funded by the US Department of Agriculture.

Hemp is a different animal. Unless the law has been changed, there are only certain parts of the US where hemp can be grown legally. Again, your local agricultural agent or state forestry department is a good starting point.

I am in the US, and was wondering what kind of crop/plant gives the highest rate of CO2 absorbtion per square foot/meter or acre occupied?

Or amount of O2 released? (One might think they are the same, but I am guessing not! ... again just a guess)

That is easy to estimate based on plant growth rate in mass, since all plants have relatively similar carbon to total mass ratios. To get more exacting, you would want the carbon to mass ration for each plant at the stage of development you would harvest. Since carbon is a major component of all plant tissues, and it is mostly derived from carbon dioxide by the plants photosynthesis, an estimate based on mass growth rates will give you a really goods measure.

So dots that imply that more dense woods are basically more carbon?

Example: A slow growing Oak, versus fast growing Pine, would contain closet to the same amount of carbon per unit mass at a given 'dryness' of the wood? (Dryness is easy to measure to some extent using gauges that wood workers use, basically resitance of the wood over a distance give a relative dryness.

I think that highest productivity per meter wood be estuary/wetland according to my very dim meories of an aquatic ecology course back in the 1970's.algae, and macro plants capture and convert more sunlight photosynthetically than land crops.

Now how to check that out?

But question back at the list, Do the plants actually Give off more Oxygen than they respire or is the plants generation and use of Oxygen in balance, just time shifted?

Hmmmm?

milo

Of course they give off more oxygen than they respire, this is how they capture a portion of the carbon they utilize to build the plant tissues as they grow (some comes from the carbonates in soil). However, when they die they usually decay in our current environment, and release the sequestered carbon back to the atmosphere.

Well the "of course" is 'nt as clear as we would have expected:

Terrestrial ecosystems exchange about 120 Gt of carbon per year with the atmosphere, through the processes of photosynthesis and respiration (Schlesinger, 1997). Roughly, half of the CO₂ assimilated annually through photosynthesis is released back to the atmosphere by plant respiration (Gifford, 1994; Amthor, 1995). http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/94/5/647

I have found other citations that slow growing plants and during dormancy plant respiration can consume as much as 75% of the carbohydrates they produce, making the "Oxygen release" about Half of the number given above.

So while it is clearly positive, it is not necessarily the "slam dunk" of Oxygen production/emission that many of us tend to think it is. In the mass of people, the idea is a simplistic plants consume carbon dioxide and give off Oxygen through the magic of photosynthesis. Never do they think of plant metabolising sugars as respiration... In reality, Plants consume carbon dioxide, convert it to sugars (photosynthesis) , then metabolize those sugars through respiration emitting back from half to 3/4's of the CO2 as a byproduct of respiration .

The portion of Oxygen released by photosynthesis is looking to be a smaller fraction- under half, and perhaps as little as 25% Oxygen of the Gross Quantity involved.

Thanks for the come back.

Milo

However, net consumption of CO2 is easy to measure in plants, as is net carbon increase. Gross consumptions of photosynthesis and releases from respiration are not as easily measured, but can be measured in contained environments, since plants do not photosynthesize at night (dark). However, measurement is more involved process than just letting the plants exist in a enclosure for some period of time and measure the carbon desnity in the atmosphere periodically.

If you want to do this on a large scale, i.e., 50 acreas at a time or more, rent/purchase a tree planter for your Allis-Chalmers tractor. If you don't own an Allis-Chalmers tractor, marry a woman who does.

LOL -

Thanks

We REALLY need a CHUCKLE rating -

rcb

Testing - Testing - Testing

Are you going to dump the trees at maturity into the deep ocean to sequester the carbon, or are you merely planning on working within the carbon cycle, so 80 years from now the carbon is re-released into the atmosphere?

Hmm, deep ocean might not sequester it for very long either, need to go way deep into bedrock and fill entrance with concrete or something similar. Something like some very deep mines in Nevada would work (try to minimize water contact), or below the reduction zone in groundwater.

Looking at this has me thinking about how much CO₂ may be generated by composting. Maybe when i get bored i will look into the mass loss in large municipal composting operations. Maybe we should just bury the compostable waste miles below ground. Grind it all up and pump it into the bottom old mines as a slurry. The organioc material would also halt the acid mine waste formation, as it would greatly reduce the oxygen available for acid formation from the natural sulfide minerals. So we solve two problems. Then we cap the sulrry with a bunch of concrete or just collapse the mine entrance to seal it. We would get rid of a lot of carbon that is intended to just decay and form CO₂ that is released to the atmosphere