Using fire to build soil carbon and water holding capacity

Restoring the West 2019

Using fire to build soil carbon and water holding capacity

Deborah S. Page-Dumroese
Research Soil Scientist, US Forest Service, Idaho

Presentation: "Using fire to build soil carbon and water holding capacity"
Dr. Debbie Page-Dumroese is a Research Soil Scientist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service in Moscow, ID. She has been involved in assessing the long-term productivity of forest soils for many years and has worked on sustaining forest growth after harvesting and site preparation. She has worked for the past decade on minimizing the impacts of slash pile burning while finding a better use for unmerchantable logging residues. This led to using biochar to improve forest,range, and abandoned mine soils around the western US. Debbie has a dozen diverse field sites where biochar application is used to restore soil and hydrologic function. She has a PhD in Forest Soils from the University of Idaho, an MS in Forest Soils from Michigan Technological University, and a BS in Natural Resource Management from Grand Valley State University.