Examining the Potential of Forest Residue-Based Amendments for Post-Wildfire Rehabilitation in Colorado, USA

Table 1

Soil properties and net N incubations 3 years after establishment of rehabilitation treatments at the Church’s Park fire, Colorado. Treatments include lodgepole pine-derived biochar and wood chip mulch, their combination, and untreated, severely burned soils. Data are means and standard error in parentheses ( blocks of  m study plots).

	Control	Biochar	Mulch	Mulch + biochar
	5.7	5.8	5.7	6.4	4.6	0.014
	5.3 (0.16)	5.1 (0.10)	5.1 (0.17)	5.7 (0.20)	2.7	0.073
NH4-N (mg N/kg)	1.6	1.2	0.6	0.2	3.5	0.032
NO3-N (mg N/kg)	0.4	0.5	0.1	0.1	4.3	0.015
Total N (g N/kg)	0.8	0.7	0.8	1.0	6.6	0.002
Total C (g N/kg)	17.4	19.3	20.2	24.5	3.5	0.031
C : N	21.4	29.6	24.3	23.8	6.3	0.003
Net mineralization (mg N/kg/28 d)	−0.7	−0.4	0.4	0.6	3.5	0.032
Net nitrification (mg N/kg/28 d)	−0.2	−0.3	0.1	0.2	5.1	0.007

Letters denote significant differences among treatment means at α = 0.05 level.