Dryland Grassland Restoration: Greening Desert Areas and Improving Saline-Alkali Land

New Sun Oversea conducts grassland restoration in dryland areas, greening desert regions and improving saline-alkali land, using bio-humus series fermented with soil probiotics, enabling tree planting and grass planting in various dryland saline-alkali areas, suitable for environmental carbon neutrality requirements.

Climate change and human activities have altered grassland ecology. Several decades ago, deserts and barren lands gradually increased in northwestern China, collectively referred to as "desertification." The reason is that original grasslands declined due to animal husbandry and reclamation, causing severe yellow sand and sandstorms to blow southward every winter and spring. In recent years, greening enterprises have begun investing in dryland grassland restoration projects, but they often encounter problems such as poor site soil quality, severe loss of organic matter, poor grass species with difficult rooting, weak root systems, etc., leading to poor greening results.

New Sun Oversea uses "Bio-Active Water" series and "High-Efficiency Organic Fertilizer" series re-fermented with soil probiotics to provide soil improvement solutions for greening enterprises. For difficult greening, desertification, or even more challenging salinization problems, we provide multi-material integrated engineering methods.

1 What is Grassland Restoration?

Grassland restoration involves soil improvement, hydrological enhancement, and planting suitable local plant species in saline-alkali areas that were originally grasslands or forests but have now degraded into deserts or barren lands. The grassland restoration we conduct is the activity of rebuilding grasslands in former grassland areas.

Grassland restoration requires attention to avoid using invasive plant species and methods that burden local groundwater resources. Therefore, selecting native grass species while adopting methods that improve soil structure in a natural way and increase soil water retention capacity is most important.

2 Characteristics of New Sun Oversea Restoration Methods

New Sun Oversea has always developed organic material products beneficial to nature using microbial power derived from nature. Compared to other manufacturers, New Sun Oversea's greening methods have two advantages: (1) Close to nature (2) Minimal impact.

We use nature-friendly microbial technology, and microorganisms need organic matter to survive and reproduce, so we do not use industrial chemical fertilizers and compound fertilizers because high-purity chemical fertilizers are extremely rare in nature. Although we can coexist with chemical and compound fertilizers, grassland restoration should avoid using them to prevent grasslands from developing bad dependency habits.

We use minimal impact microbial technology. We insist that as long as the soil environment is properly prepared, the microorganisms we introduce will reproduce themselves, and grass species will find their own way. Therefore, we minimize the use of other materials to reduce the impact of foreign components on local soil. Our engineering methods are based on conditions suitable for restoration at the site. We believe that adapting materials to the site environment can achieve the greatest benefits in both engineering costs and restoration results.

3 How to Conduct Inner Mongolia Grassland Restoration?

New Sun Oversea grassland restoration methods are divided into four phases: (1) Preliminary investigation and environmental assessment (2) Solution design (3) On-site implementation (4) Results tracking and improvement.

Since 2018, we have cooperated with a listed Chinese landscaping enterprise to assess grassland restoration near Hulunbuir City in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The local area has a temperate continental climate with rainfall concentrated from May to August, so we decided to start grassland restoration and greening before the rainy season the following year.

In early May, daily high temperatures are about 10°C, with over 12 hours of sunshine on the unshaded grassland, quite suitable for awakening grass seeds. We first confirmed (1) Harder, rocky areas on the desert had been drilled to improve permeability; (2) Large gravel, floating soil, loose stones, remaining dead grass, etc. had been cleared to form a more stable soil plane; (3) Simultaneously used Bio-Active Water to soak grass seeds for over 24 hours, providing appropriate humidity for grass seeds and coating them with various soil probiotics, which can increase disease resistance of seeds after landing in the soil.

After hydroseeding completion, we continuously monitored grass seed growth status and land moisture content, supplementing maintenance when necessary. Selected grass species require adequate water supply during initial sowing and seedling stages for high survival rates, becoming more drought-tolerant after maturing. Starting from June 2019, as temperatures rose, thin grass had grown at the grassland restoration site. At this time, seedlings had grown roots and were less likely to be washed away during summer rainy season.

After the rainy season in August 2019, the grassland restoration site was thriving, with grass growing to calf or even knee height. We collected grass plants and soil from the grassland restoration site for testing and found huge differences between areas using Bio-Active Water and high-efficiency organic fertilizer for grassland restoration and control group areas.

4 How to Improve Saline-Alkali Land?

Saline-alkali land can be mainly divided into coastal areas and inland areas. Coastal areas require proper salt washing, drainage, and prevention of seawater infiltration, while inland areas require initial salt washing and soil aggregation improvement.

Coastal saline-alkali land is mainly sodium chloride. After salt washing and drainage, use Agricultural Active Water and high-efficiency organic fertilizer fermented with soil probiotics mixed into site soil, then plant salt-tolerant or salt-metabolizing plants. Soil probiotics will use high-efficiency organic fertilizer to reproduce in the soil, producing biological acids, metabolites, biofilms, etc. that will bind sandy soil particles, forming larger soil aggregates, preventing deep salt from moving upward through capillary action and re-salinizing surface soil.

Inland saline-alkali land has diverse types, including calcium sulfate, magnesium salts, potassium salts, caused by evaporation exceeding rainfall, with salts in soil accumulating in upper soil layers, causing crop root dehydration and poor adaptation. We similarly use Agricultural Active Water and high-efficiency organic fertilizer mixed into site soil, then plant salt-tolerant or salt-metabolizing plants, allowing soil probiotics to assist in forming soil aggregates on site, improving salinization phenomenon.

5 Grassland Restoration Product List