Highway Planting Research

Highway planting is placed for aesthetic, safety, environmental mitigation, water pollution prevention and erosion control purposes. This link provides information on planting programs, policies and philosophy

Reinforced Native Grass Sod, 2008

This research project is in progress. The final report will be posted when it becomes available.
Caltrans is funding and administering a research project performed by The Montana State University. The purpose of this research is to develop a process and methods to grow and plant native grass sod in an economically viable and commercially available way. Caltrans needs to provide treatment for storm water runoff as well as erosion control. Native grass sod promises to be useful offering immediate, permanent and sustainable protection of bare soil.

Legume Seed Inoculation for Highway Planting in California, 2006

This research project is in progress. The final report will be posted when it becomes available.
As part of ongoing evaluations by Caltrans of standard erosion control and highway planting specifications, a review of the basic science and practice of legume seed inoculation was necessary 1) to ascertain whether documented evidence exists to indicate that legume inoculation for nitrogen-augmentation is both consistently reliable and quantifiable, and 2) to provide Caltrans with potential revisions to existing specifications.

Competitive Growth Characteristics of Native and Exotic Grasses, 1998

This report contains a number of experiments designed to study the competitive interactions between herbaceous species used in erosion control seeding. The results of these experiments suggest that within an herbaceous plant community, species that use resources differently in space and time create more stable plant communities than species with more similar resource use patterns.

Effectiveness of Tap Root Bags in Establishing Plantings of Oak, 1995

This report demonstrates the effectiveness of two-year oak seedlings grown in a taproot bag or equivalent container. The taproot bag showed a higher survival rate when compared to acorn plantings and Deep Pot plantings. Taproot bags showed substantial increase in survival in rodent infested sites.