Screening solutions for Australian mining

Agricultural engineer and assistant professor at UWA’s School of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering Andrew Guzzomi. By Samantha James RESEARCHERS at the University of Western Australia (UWA) have invented a new rehabilitation technique for large tracts of land such as reclaimed mine sites. The ‘flash flaming’ technique aids in replanting wild seeds by carefully burning off the fluffy appendages that appear on many seeds, which make them difficult to handle and ‘coat’ for large-scale remote restoration. The scientists used Spinifex seeds, the dominant plants of desert grasslands that cover up to 70 per cent of inland Australia, to test the technique’s effectiveness. “Successful large-scale restoration of mine sites relies on the effective use of seeds from wild or native species,” UWA...