Operational experiences of sludge application to forest sites in Southern Scotland

SUMMARY This paper describes sewage sludge application experiments at two forest sites in Southern Scotland. Clydesdale is a relatively flat area on the site of a former opencast mine, whereas Glentress is a steeply sloping, upland site. The sites were chosen as the tree crops were suffering from nitrogen and phosphorus deficiency. Digested sludge was applied at Clydesdale and, as forestry is not subject to the EC Sludge Directive, raw sludge was applied at Glentress. The practical aspects of sludge application at each site are discussed and problems highlighted. Initial results are encouraging and indicate that sludge can be successfully applied to forest sites and that rapid tree growth increases can be expected.