Evington group teams with Tech to test use of compost

It’s a research project that will beautify a barren landscape in Lynchburg — and likely help the environment simultaneously.

The Evington-based Southern Landscape Group this week teamed up with Virginia Tech’s crop and soil environmental sciences department to test the use of compost on nutrient-deficient soils.

Mark Maslow, president of Southern Landscape Group and a Tech graduate, has been working on landscaping projects at The Summit for about a year. He heard about Tech’s research and suggested the site.Monday, the team spread about 20 tons of the black compost, made mostly from paper mill sludge materials, in plots alongside The Summit retirement community in Wyndhurst.

“Generally with disturbed soil, the top soil is gone,” said Rory Maguire, assistant professor in the department at Tech. “So that’s why the compost is useful — it replaces the organic matter.”

The group’s members divided the roughly 225-foot-by-60-foot site into 15 sections. They spread five different treatments over the orange earth, repeated three times each.

On some sections, they spread only commercial fertilizer. On others, they distributed either a thin layer of the compost or a slightly thicker layer.

Some of the plots were tilled to mix in the compost. Others weren’t.

“It may be that a light layer of compost is really good for seed establishment,” said Greg Evanylo, a Tech professor. Or, another mixture might work better.

Because the compost is costlier than commercial fertilizers, he said, the group hopes to answer whether it can be used in smaller amounts and still achieve the goal of growing vegetation.

“One of the big questions would be sort of the economics,” Evanylo said.

Grass likely will start to sprout in two to three weeks, said Tech graduate student Shea Dunifon, who hopes to write about the research.Sometime after that, the group will make its first trip back to the site to collect data.

Maguire, who advises Dunifon, said they plan to record a number of factors that help determine how well the compost has worked at the site, compared to commercial fertilizer.

How much grass and what species have grown? How many and what type of weeds are present? Does the soil have a proper balance of nutrients and organic matter? And what is the soil’s water-holding capacity? All are questions the group will address.

They will continue to monitor the site for at least a year, Maguire said.Dunifon said the group has worked with several different compost mixes in the past.

“All of them, from what we’ve seen, have been pretty successful,” she said. “It’s a great way for people to get rid of all this waste.”

If it wasn’t turned into compost, Evanylo said, the waste likely would go to a landfill.

Maslow said Southern Landscape began using compost at residential projects last summer. He hopes his business eventually can use the data they collect from the project, he said.

“It’s something our company has always wanted to explore more,” he said. “This all just kind of ties hand-in-hand with the whole green movement.”