Investigation of Seed Bombs for Military Lands.

Rapid revegetation is critical for military land management.  Many times lands needing revegatation are located within areas that are either difficult to access or off-limits due to unexploded ordinances.  Since military lands often have diverse and in certain cases extreme terrain it can make traditional agricultural methods for seeding nearly impossible.  Additionally, many times seeding needs to take place under non-optimal conditions.  An inexpensive, minimal-disturbance method for establishing vegetation was identified through investigations ERDC-CERL and CRREL.   Utilization of a non-traditional method "seed bombs", for rapid seeding of disturbed areas may provide a method that could be adopted by land managers.  This study conducted in growth chambers focused on discovering optimal materials and ratios to construct seed bombs out of.  The results and proposed methodology for optimally constructing seed bombs for disturbed sites are presented in this paper.  Successful implementation of the methods will reduce expenses and provide an alternative to revegetation under sub-optimal field conditions.