Getting Serious About Seed Gathering

This is a post that I wrote a couple months ago, and then forgot about before it got published. Thus, some of the temporal references are dated, but rather than rewrite the post I would like you to pretend that it is September 1. With that awkward introduction out of the way, here’s the post, which I plan to follow with a post delving back into the topic of “locally adapted seed”.

The last post discussed hopes and plans to increase availability of seed for restorations by growing some species for harvest, in effect agricultural fields of native seed. This is obviously dependent upon first gathering native selections to increase. Thus, I have decided to devote a post to a summary of seed gathering and some of the attendant issues, both practical and conceptual.

Over the past four years I have spent a lot of time in my relict prairies, as well as some owned by friends, gathering seed. I’m unable to spend long hours in the field, but an hour or two at a time 2-3 time a week over 15-20 weeks adds up. How much seed do I gather? Well, that becomes a complicated question dependent upon the target, the time of year and the quality of the area I am working in. Early in the year, meaning anytime before now, I often have one or two targets, and can spend my entire gathering session to get only a handful of a desired species. Yesterday I ended up gathering small amounts of six species, four of which are in the picture below. The other two went into a bag that is a catchall for any xeric adapted species, and I didn’t want to try to guess what amount was gathered yesterday to remove for the picture.

Doesn’t look like much for the work of an hour and a half, even if you add what was a big handful of blanket flower (Gaillardia aristata) and hairy goldenaster (Heterotheca villosa), the two species that went directly into the bag, but to me it’s more important than the paltry amount looks. I will return to that thought in my next post, but will backtrack to some bigger issues of seed gathering first.

There are two conjoined conundrums of conservation seed gathering: How to gather enough seed to make an impact on the restoration where the seed will be spread, and how to limit seed gathering to am amount which doesn’t impact long term viability of a species in the relict prairie. A proper balance between these two often competing goals is not always possible, but is rarely a large dilemma. The first goal is usually the larger problem. This spring I had prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) and pasqueflower (Anemone patens) blooming everywhere on both my restoration and the relict prairies. I assumed that I would be able to gather large amounts of both species.

Both these species bloom early and make seeds that stay attached to feathery plumes that waft in the wind. The window for gathering both is perhaps 7-10 days, after which the abscission layer is complete and they blow away. A seed that will blow away in the wind needs to be small and plants tend to make a lot of them, hoping some tiny percentage have an opportunity to continue their lineage. Add in the fact that they will not all mature at the same time and it is almost impossible to gather enough seed to worry about a detrimental impact to the population. The problem, rather, is timing an opportunity to get a useful amount. As it turned out, I had the opportunity to gather the pasque on what may have been the perfect day and have a nice amount of seed, perhaps 4-6 ounces. That is in a refrigerator waiting to be spread on the new restoration this fall. The prairie smoke matures 7-10 days later, and there were three consecutive days of 95-100 degree weather with high winds during that period which abruptly matured and then distributed the seed hither and yon. I may have gathered 10-15% of the pasque seed in my prairies, but doubt I got more than 1% of the prairie smoke, less than an ounce. I will either have to purchase some prairie smoke to supplement what I gathered, or rely upon better luck in gathering next year, no sure thing.

There are several other ways that plants make their seed hard to gather, such as shelling out immediately upon maturity, becoming nondescript brown entities which are almost impossible to find or by being eaten by animals and letting the animals distribute their seed Add in 35 cows with calves eating their way across the pastures to all the other native seed users, and quite a few seeds disappear right before I have the opportunity to pick them. Suffice to say, gathering sufficient seed from the relict prairies to supply the 20 acres of new restoration is a significant problem, and gathering enough seed of most species to impact populations in the relict prairies is less of a concern.

Here is another way to put it: over evolutionary time every species has developed a strategy that allows it to use its resources to maximize its “fitness”, which in short means its ability to send its genetics into another generation. One significant implication of this is that plants don’t really “waste” their resources to produce excess seeds. Over many generations plants of all the prairie species produced enough seed to maximize their chance to continue their genetic line and successfully procreate. Thus, even for species which make a great deal of seed I must assume some might find a new home and become new plants. Gathering a small fraction of their available seed of a species such as pasqueflower seems harmless, but it might mean a few less plants grow the next year. I can balance that fact out, however, with the high population that exists now in the relict prairie and the reasonable hope that I can turn that seed into a significant increase in population and range in the restoration. I have reason to hope that 10,000 seeds gathered that might have become 10 or 20 additional plants in the relict prairie can become 100 or 200 new plants in the restoration. The numbers are cheap speculation, but I think it is fair to assume that many more of the seeds will germinate and grow in a new area with a great deal of biotic space than in an existing prairie with very little. Thus, even though I am assuming I am impacting their natural reproduction in a small way, the more significant problem is not gathering too much seed, but how to access enough adapted seed of those species to augment my restorations.

There are a few species for which this is not true, however. They are more visible, they hold on to their seeds for a longer period of time, and populations in my prairies may be lower, scattered rather than ubiquitous. I will give two examples (out of perhaps 8-10 species where I face this dilemma) and describe how I view them.

The first is what to me is the flagship species of relict dry prairies in this area, black samson, aka narrow-leaved coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia).

If I see black samson in a pasture I know not just that it is a native prairie remnant, but that it has had very little herbicide. Depending upon the herbicide, one treatment is unlikely to eliminate black samson, but two or three treatments will. I have a large population in my prairies and have been fortunate enough to have gathered and spread enough seed upon my restoration that all the xeric to dry mesic areas have developed large populations as well. So where lies my dilemma, you may ask.

My assumption, based upon a few years of observation, is that black samson is a long lived species, and that gathering seed will not visibly affect the population for a long time. The hill above was in spectacular bloom in 2019 because of the combination of a spring burn and excellent summer rain.

After maturity the heads stay upright, holding on to their seeds for weeks, even months, before letting them fall in November or over winter. They are also extremely easy to see, even from a distance. It would be possible to harvest every seedhead. One of the goals of my restoration was to potentially expand habitat for the Dakota skipper butterfly (Hesperia dacotae), and black samson has been well documented as a preferred nectar source of the Dakota skipper. Thus, I have been determined to gather and spread as much as possible, and have exceeded 50% removal in many areas. Once again, it is ubiquitous across the prairie hills, and the literature mentions apocryphal stories about its longevity, leading one to believe that the population in my prairies can manage my theft in a good cause. I now have perhaps 70-80 acres in two different restorations with good populations of black samson, almost entirely from gathered seed.

My question now is whether I dare go to the well again to supply seed for my new 20 acre restoration project. I have found a source in the literature that found germinable seed, likely two or three years old, in the soil of a Kansas prairie. The authors speculated that black samson is a species which “seed banks”, storing up seed in the soil for germination after a disturbance event. In other words, the seed that I have gathered might not be important now, but could be in the future. The seed is maturing now, and I will begin gathering this week. I have not yet made a decision on how aggresive I will be gathering seed this year, but will do so soon. I am leaning towards holding gathering down around a third of the seedheads to allow the seedbank to build, and certainly gather no more than half. Then, next year, when I am not planning to do a new restoration, but may gather seed to topdress some areas of my existing restorations, I will only gather the heads that I find in the restored prairies and give the relict prairies a total rest.

The other example resides on the other end of the spectrum from black samson, being far less common. Standing milkvetch, or prairie milkvetch (Astragalus adsurgens) is an uncommon plant in my prairies, to the point where I know where most of the plants are, primarily on four or five hills on two of the prairies. I found the reason for this when the renters cattle broke through the crossfence in a pasture and grazed the hayland that I was planning to rest. The milkvetch is obviously “cow candy” and almost every plant was grazed right down into the dirt.

My assumption is that one year of premature grazing won’t be a serious problem for the plants which still likely have plenty of root reserves to grow next spring. Otherwise they would never have withstood the grazing of a herd of bison. I will have to be careful, however, not to allow this to happen repeatedly. The grazing, which occurred about a week before seed maturity, presented a dilemma regarding collection. I lost the plants which I had assumed would supply 80% of the seed I would gather. The adjacent pasture, ungrazed so far, has far fewer plants, only 12-15, and I needed to decide my collection strategy.

My strategy, perhaps a bit aggressive, was to gather 80 % of the seed on the plants that I had left. The goal was not to spread the seed this fall, as that method of seeding has so far only netted me one lonely plant in the 100 acre restoration. However, my new best friend, Dr. Lora Perkins at South Dakota State University (SDSU) will likely be able to turn that seed into a lot of seedlings which I can then replant in the new restoration as well as in the old restoration. Standing milkvetch is a a plant for which it is impossible to purchase seed from any vendors within 300 miles. Thus, I hope to begin a seed increase plot to provide seed for myself and hopefully other restorations that may occur in this area. The simple fact that it is unavailable means that there is likely to be difficulties in growing the seed. Otherwise I could probably find a vendor trying to make money on it. My other ace in the hole, besides Dr. Perkins, is another professor at SDSU, Dr. Arvid Boe, who has broad experience in working with native plants, and can hopefully educate me past some of the most obvious pitfalls. Then, if I have any success with the seedling plugs, and if I am successful in increasing seed production I can pay back my seed withdrawals with interest, planting seedlings and spreading seed back on my native prairie remnants.

That’s the plan, anyway, though it was also the plan this year. Several factors came together which interfered with the plan’s implementation and I hope to have better luck in 2023. One advantage I will have is starting early in building a team of people who are invested in making this work. Because of my health issues I am clearly the weak link in this plan and I hope to build in significant redundancy over the winter so it could move forward without my active participation.

As I stated earlier, standing milkvetch is only one of several species which are difficult to gather and also difficult to buy. I end with a picture of another, prairie larkspur (Delphinium virescens), which I discussed in a recent post. I didn’t get a lot of seed, but I hope to turn a small amount of seed into something significant in much the same manner as the standing milkvetch. Big hopes and dreams, but one has to start somewhere. As I also stated earlier, the value of my gathered native seed is, at least in my eyes, greater than what it seems; it is greater than an equivalent amount of purchased seed. That is the topic of the next post which will hopefully be published soon.

A Bouquet of September Surprises

The theme of this short post is one I have hit before. Life is on fire. Every day, no, every minute, is a new and precious thing., and you need to be out in the world to see life or you might miss it. For instance; Grooved yellow flax (Linum sulcatum) is an annual which only germinates and grows with appropriate early summer rain. Rain has been hard to come by in June the past several years, but I was fortunate enough to receive a couple rains in late June and early July this year, After three years where I saw very few flax blooms, this was what lay before me when I visited the prairie in mid-July. As soon as I crested the last hill before this prairie the vista was streaked with hills of pale yellow separating the deeper green valleys below.

Though there are obviously many flax plants to gather it is a frustrating process. the bouquet above is perhaps 250 plants picked while crawling over the hill on my hands and knees, and the end result is below in the small plastic bowl. Much of what is in the bowl is not seed, but the stems and hulls of the little flax bolls. Still, there are a lot of seeds there, and the little guys are very prolific when given an opportunity. Thus, I will try to use the best chance I have had in my five years of seed gathering and get back out to gather more. It obviously has a great ability to self seed and the seed has some longevity, so a little might go a long way.

There is a very clear pattern for many species to bloom and set seed in profusion one year, and then take a year or two off. For an annual like yellow flax the signal is pretty clearly the proper timing for rain. Yellow flax is a plant of dry country, and evolutionary forces have “taught” it to respond to the appropriate precipitation event. I don’t know if the stimulus is the same for my next example of a good reason to get out regularly to look around. Three weeks before I took the picture of the flax, about the same time I ended up in the hospital for dehydration, I drove up to the pasture that adjoins the prairie with the flax and saw this.

It’s not unusual to see a few cactus blooms on my hills, but I cannot remember them ever blooming in such profusion, with multiple blooms on many plants. What is even more unusual is to see so many of the blooms pollinate and produce fruit. Like many plants, cactus has more than one way to reproduce, though its method of clonal reproduction is unusual. When conditions are good it will make new balls, until there may be a group of 20 or 30 joined together in a cluster. Then, a disturbance such as a cow (or historically a buffalo) will dislodge some, which can then move to a new spot nearby to start a new cluster. I am propagating some in that manner in my restoration, having found a few which the cattle dislodged. That’s all well and good for me, but a cactus won’t move very far in this manner as no other animal will pick up one the spiny little bastards to move it. They will, however move the fruits, which have many seeds embedded in a jelly. When the fruits are ripe they dislodge very easily, so one can imagine them falling out where a mouse, gopher or ground squirrel would pick them up to take them back to consume in a safe spot, and the seed likely passes on through to germinate wherever they might defecate. I’m a lot bigger and uglier than the rodent, or perhaps rabbit, that is the normal partner, but I have several new gravel hills where we will see if we can establish colonies.

As always, I wonder how important an individual species is, and simply have to shrug my shoulders. I am trying to do a good thing here: environmentally, socially, economically and whatever other descriptive word that ends in “ally” you want to fill in; but ultimately I have to be humble enough to realize I don’t have answers to many of my questions and simply please myself. And it will please me greatly to find pincushion cactus in my restoration in the future. So it goes.

The final topic is one I give a lot of thought to. While I have stated that one of the most important outcomes of these restorations is to expand the populations and range of my native forbs, I spread seed of many species which I have never seen on my prairies. Below is a species I have never seen in any prairie around here, flat-topped aster. There was a discussion at a field day I attended recently where experienced conservation professionals were asking this of each other. To paraphrase: “I can buy this native species that really isn’t found near this site for 10% of the cost of the close relative that is. Am I wrong to do that? Or does accomplishing my goals for ecosystem services by getting a good population of the cheaper species outweigh the worries that I might be missing something?” I hope that gets the dilemma right. The consensus was that we simply don’t know what the right choice is, so go ahead and do something. Either choice is better than another corn or soybean field, or even a field of native grass without wildflowers. In my own restoration I have had the luxury of having my cake as well as eating it, and have often spent the money on the expensive species, as well as adding some species that are not found nearby. I generally went to the range maps, and if it was found within a county or two from mine would use it. Most prairies, even good relict prairies, likely have lost a lot of species from pre-settlement times, and it may have been here 125 years ago.

The “surprise” aspect of the flat-topped aster is that it is a mesic species and my site is mostly xeric. I found a couple plants two years ago on droughty soils and put them on my species list, but saw none last year. I assumed they may have succumbed to drought and I wasted my efforts by being careless where I spread them. This week I found several growing in appropriate sites near the drainage that runs through the restoration, and I was very pleased to see them.

The related question is the number of plants that are needed to create a population that can support the proper pollinator(s) and have enough genetic variability to avoid inbreeding effects. I don’t know the answer to that, though I am confident it is a lot more than the 4 or 5 that I saw. I will continue to think about that in the future with an eye towards perhaps augmenting the populations of some species attempting to cross the threshold to viability in the long term. For now, I am happy to have seen these.

With that I will close this post, and see what I find the next time I go to the restoration. October is a wonderful time to be alive!

The Autumn of My Dreams/the Winter of My Discontent

I couldn’t resist the literary allusion. Actually, Shakespeare said “the winter of our discontent”, but I will only comment upon my own foibles and concerns. We will be moving to the Twin Cities for the winter (probably the only two people on the planet who choose to winter in Minnesota) and I am trying to finish the field season strong, by being super productive over the next 6 weeks before the enforced inactivity of winter. There is a lot of triage to do as I decide which tasks are mandatory and which are optional. So far I am doing ok on my big seed collection project to be used on the new 20 acre restoration, though there’s too many days like yesterday, when I am at the restoration at 3:00 PM, with loads of daylight remaining, and my body tells me its time to go home. Yet even yesterday I drove out into the poorer part of the restoration to imagine a spring burn and found new treasures.

As I’ve mentioned before, there is a 20-25 acre area on the east side of the restoration that had to be broadcast sprayed with multiple herbicide applications for Canada thistle control. As there was almost no seed placed there by the Conservation District drill, and thus almost no forbs, the risk of damage from the herbicide was very small. The survey I did was both to evaluate grass composition to decide upon the if and when of a burn, and to see what forbs are sneaking in. What I saw wasn’t anything like the other 75 acres, but it was more than has been seen there in past years. That is partially due to the eventual germination and survival of a few seeds that slipped by the drill blockage that ruined the original seeding, partially due to some additional forb seed that I have spread over parts of the 25 acres and partially due to seed blowing in or being carried in by animals. All told, I saw about 15-20 forb species in various densities, including the bottle gentians, and perhaps the beginning on a plan for management. These now make 122 species found on the 100 acre restoration.

Grazing and haying are allowed on CRP, though rental payments of that year need to be foregone, and management plans submitted. Still, here’s the idea: I will try to get this burned in the spring of 2024. I already have a burn planned for 50 acres next spring, and am not eager to take on two large burns in the same year. In the meantime I have a two or three acre area within the 50 acres of 2023 burn that I want to augment forb diversity on and can use as a trial/experiment to inform what could be done on the 25 acres in 2024. After the burn I hope to add a seed mix of 15-20 species of wildflower and perhaps 2-3 new grass species. This mix will be of species adapted to the mesic site and will be mixed in a soil medium where it will have already received a cold stratification to overcome seed dormancy; in other words, I hope it is ready to germinate immediately. A lot depends upon the timing and the heat of the fire. If it is a good fire about the 25th of April, I hope that there will be some black ground showing with a bunch of fine soot. In that case I will rely upon the rain and gravity to put the seed into a good situation for germination. If a layer of partially burned thatch remains after the fire, I would try to hire the renter on my farmed ground to run either a drag or a packer over it to help seed get down to mineral soil. Then, ideally, I would try to get some grazing across it to hold down the existing grass competition as well as get some hoof action and some fertilizer. I doubt that I will get any grazing going on the 2-3 acres that I hope to do next spring, however, as it will not likely be practical for the renter who grazes my pastures to mess with such a small area. Hay can perhaps act as a grazing substitute, allowing a little solar radiation closer to ground level. However, in 2024, perhaps we can get some grazing across the 25 acres that will be burned that spring.

How does this all relate to the title, specifically the first half, “The Autumn of My Dreams.”? It has been a very good September for me so far. I have been able to get up to the prairies and the restoration about three days a week, and am shooting for four. The end gate of my field season will likely be when I fly to California November 10 to visit my daughter Diane and her husband Ebi. Yesterday I had the joy of finding two new species in the restoration. Tomorrow I hope to go to my wife’s grazing system and gather seed. As much as she respects what I am doing in my restoration work she is starting to roll her eyes when I say I’m going to collect seed there: “Again, my dear? There are other tasks that are valuable.” are what her eyes, actions and body language communicate, though she rarely says anything. Collecting seed at Whetstone, her grazing system, provides a variety of genotypes that are likely different from the genotypes in the relict prairies on my home farm, and potentially valuable to the restoration. It also validates and recognizes the good work that Linda has done to improve the pastures under her care. There is plenty of seed to gather and it never hurts to score points with your spouse.

In addition to the tasks of observation and seed gathering I have also been honored to have a couple groups tour my project and to give me some input. First, back in August, a group came from the USDA Plant Materials Center in Bismarck. Their work is developing varieties of various plants of the region, primarily native, that could be used in various sorts of conservation and production settings. During our conversation I learned that , together with Dr. Arvid Boe at South Dakota State University, they were collecting samples of plains muhly (Muhlenbergia cuspidata), a western grass that I have in my gravel hills. The goal is to compare selections for a potential release of a plains muhly variety. The next day I went out and got a couple samples and took them to Arvid, who is growing them. Thus, there is a chance that a genotype from my humble hills will become part of a released variety selection. This was also an opportunity for their staff to see one of the results of their work, their seed used in a prairie restoration. Forming an intuitive understanding of the daily work that you do can be helped by seeing positive results coming from that work.

Then, two weeks ago, I hosted the second annual Field Day for Conservation Professionals at the restoration. There were a couple last minute cancellations as often happens, but 12 people showed up to join Linda and I for a walk, discussion and lunch. For several of the attendees it was their first visit to the restoration. While some had to leave right after grabbing a quick lunch, many stuck around to continue the conversation well into the afternoon. The give and take that can occur in a field situation is silver and gold as learning currency, and clearly fits under the aspiration inherent in the title. This was the sort of thing I do dream to accomplish, to have a site that can educate, and hopefully inspire the conservation professionals of the region. And I, of course, learned a great deal. This is a selfish world, after all, and I do not apologize for considering my hopes in the plan.

And that finally brings us to the second half of the title, which I hope is not truly descriptive of my impending winter. I have no idea what it will be like to live in a city for four months. I am sure that the time will be cut into smaller blocks by trips to visit my daughters, and by trips back to the farm to feed horses and to check on things. Still, I anticipate periods of boredom and ennui. One of the many great lines I have borrowed from the author, Douglas Adams, is “the long, dark teatime of the soul”. What do you do when you have taken all the baths one can reasonably take, and are oppressed by the thought of trying to figure out one more clue in the Sunday crossword? My goal is to avoid that trap and to have a balance of activities to supplement the house repair/improvement projects I will assist on, which will keep me from falling into the morass Mr. Adams refers to. I have ideas, and we will see how creative I can be. This will be helped tremendously by the park with multiple walking trails which is only a half block away and several conservation organizations which have their offices nearby in St. Paul.

But before then I plan to have a glorious fall, an autumn for the ages. There have already been many rewarding moments, but perhaps the best was getting to go out collecting seed with my girlfriend. Linda and I spent an hour or two gathering grass seed, identifying plants. looking for her patches of meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) along the edges of the sloughs to gather seed from, and discussing the biological theory behind the advantages and disadvantages of different seed sources. Linda can nerd out on this stuff just as well as I can and fights for her viewpoint with vigor and panache. That sort of discussion is very good for me. I was walking along behind her on this beautiful early fall day and a paraphrase of another Douglas Adams line came to mind: “Sometimes one gets so overwhelmed by the beauty in the world and the oneness of life that the only response is to pop round the corner to the pub for a quick glass of perspective and soda.” That was how I felt. And after we finished our jaunt on the prairie we went to the lake cabin nearby, now owned by my nephew, and had that libation with my brother and sister in law who were visiting. Discontent is inevitable sometimes, but I will valiantly hold it at bay and enjoy the next few weeks.

The Great (I Hope) Seed Project

This is a fleshing out of some of the thoughts from a previous post: “Not All Plants Are Created Equal”. giving some specific examples of what I hope to begin. But first, a little background. The genesis for the thesis I will explore here occurred when I originally began trying to purchase seed for the restoration in 2017. I went to the local purveyor, Milborn Seeds in Brookings, South Dakota, 80 miles south of here and started a dialogue with their native seeds specialist, Jason. He was somewhat bemused by some of my questions, but Jason is a good fellow trying to do the right thing by his customers, and patiently waded through my requests. At the end of it all, he told me what species they had, what he might be able to access and that what I was interested in was going to be very expensive. I specifically remember asking about textile onion, a common component of the gravel hilltops in my prairies, and his reply that he had no experience with it and that I should look to other seed sellers. I did, and the result was a big fat zero. There seemed to be no way I could buy any textile onion seed. Similar discussions on other species had similar results; I was asking for seeds for which there obviously wasn’t enough market to induce a business like Milborn’s to grow or have access to them. The answer seemed to be simple: I would gather the seed.

Life is really never that simple, though. In the container in the top picture is perhaps an ounce of textile onion seed, about 10-12,000 seeds. I may be able to get a few more, but I have already hit the best areas, and much of the seed is already shelling out. This year’s picking has provided far more seed than was gathered over the last four years put together. Like many prairie species. textile onion doesn’t always produce a lot of seed. Last year, in a spring drought, I hardly saw one bloom. That is one reason that I am trying so hard to gather a good quantity right now. This is an opportunity I may not get again for several years. While 10-12,000 seeds sounds like a large quantity, this is not all germinable seed. Perhaps 6-8,000 might be considered pure, live seed (PLS). Textile onion doesn’t grow everywhere; it is only competitive on my very worst soils, of which I have about 10 acres in my restoration. That comes out to 600-800/acre, or one seed for every 60-80 square feet. On those soils I should really be seeding at least one seed every square foot if I hope to establish a population. There lies the conundrum. How does one get enough seed to do a good job?

I hadn’t really worried too much about such issues in the first couple years of gathering. There were big crops of many species, and I had many concerns trying to get ground cover on areas of the restoration that had not received sufficient seed during the first seeding by the Conservation District. 2020 and 2021 were both far more difficult years to gather seed than the previous two years, however. Spring and early summer were dry and warm both years, and rains in August were too late to induce cautious prairie plants to flower and produce seed. I was able to get out to prairies owned by a couple friends to supplement what I gathered on mine, but I could see that this was a very significant barrier to scaling up prairie restoration in this neck of the woods. This year has had a good start for seed production, but a hot, dry stretch in June has me wondering whether I will be able to gather significant amounts to spread on the 20 acres that I plan to seed this fall.

Following are pictures of three species that I am interested in. Though I have found two of them in the restoration, populations are very low. The characteristic they all share is scattered small populations across my native remnants, which makes it impossible to gather enough seed to significantly enhance my restored prairies. I hope to gather a little this year, though the larkspur has already responded to the hot, dry June by disappearing in many places. Larkspur will literally kill the top growth to preserve rootstock, something very interesting to see. Obviously the tradeoff of continued photosynthesis versus food going to seed production has been taken into account in evolutionary terms and the plant will simply hunker down and wait for another year’s opportunity to make seed.

Though I hesitate to gather any seed from such a reluctant seed producer I will likely gather a little from the remaining blooms, with the plan to engage in off site increase, which I will come to later.

The pretty little cactus below is another example of a plant that I have never gathered any seed from. Cactus are scattered across most of the xeric hills, on the south and west facing slopes. They inhabit at most four or five acres across 80 acres of remnant prairie, but seem to be slowly increasing in population. They aren’t quite as picky as the larkspur, but would still be considered a sporadic bloomer, with almost no blooms the past two years. This year, induced by the early spring rains, or perhaps by the carbohydrate reserves they had built up over the past two years, they are blooming profusely, allowing me to find a couple small populations that I was unaware of. At one point I was considering separating off a few balls to replant in my restoration, but I think that instead I will try to gather some seed this summer, once again to increase rather than to seed directly in my restoration.

My third example Is one I discussed a bit in a previous post, standing milkvetch, a legume that is scattered through the hills in my prairies. I have gathered bits of seed from my plants in previous years, but have not ever been able to gather enough to add a significant amount to the mixes I have spread, and was very pleasantly surprised to find one in the restoration.

These are just three examples that are on my mind because they are blooming right now. There are probably 20-30 other species that all share some subset of a group of characteristics to make it difficult to add to my restorations centered on the inability to gather enough seed, and the inability to purchase enough seed to supplement what I gather. This now begs the question, “What am I going to do about it?” Or to turn the question around, “How can I magnify the effect of the few seeds that I am able to gather?”

First, as I stated in the earlier post, I have had Dr. Lora Perkins at South Dakota State University (SDSU) grow some seedling plugs for me to transplant. In total, I planted about 350 seedlings of 10-11 species, mostly during the first ten days of June. The month which just ended, was 3-4 degrees above average in temperature, and the driest June since 1988. Included was a three day stretch of 95-100 degree days with 30-40 mph winds to completely dessicate the poor little seedlings. I am afraid very few will live. However, if any at all live it will be a testament to the concept. I am very interested in doing this again next year with a carefully chosen group of species, but will try to get them transplanted earlier when there is less chance of hot, dry weather.

Ultimately, though I am not going to be able to transplant enough seedlings to make up for the lack of seed. The reasonable alternative is to use some of the seed that I have gathered to begin prairie restoration seed fields. Those fields are not going to be established and managed by me; I have my labor all booked in caring for my restorations. Thus, the question is how best to access the resources to augment my initial efforts and produce a significant amount of seed. Possibilities abound, but no resource is cheap. Labor isn’t cheap; land isn’t cheap; facilities and tools aren’t cheap; and even my management and planning isn’t cheap. The money will have to come from somewhere, whether from my pocket, from donated labor and materials or from selling the seed. Do we consider starting a small non-profit corporation to use as a vehicle to apply for grants and to accept donations. I have run a for-profit business for forty years and hesitate to go down that path. I would rather try to find a way to create a business plan to monetize the seed production, including paying for the seed for my own restorations. While I have no illusions that I will make a profit from such a venture I hope to make it pay its way. I already have a C corporation that no longer has a consulting business at its core. Perhaps that’s the vehicle. If I find a partner to share this with it is a very quick and inexpensive process to start an LLC to be the business. I am not the only person or the only entity doing prairie restoration. Others will be interested in such seed. This will be a good winter project. In the meantime I will continue to gather seed and work toward having the conversations that always help clarify raw ideas. Next week I am hosting a small field tour of my restoration with some people who I hope to discuss this with, some staff from the NRCS Plant Materials Center in Bismark. I have also invited Dr. Perkins up form SDSU to join in the tour and discussion. If the conversation occurs and is fruitful I will probably write about it. Fun stuff.

Postscript: One day after I wrote this my prairies received 3.5″ of rain, an unexpected gift from the heavens. There will be a lot of seed to gather in a few weeks.

June Observations, 2022

After the abysmal spring we had we have abruptly leapt into summer. with temperatures likely over 100 tomorrow. Prior to the past week it had appeared that every prairie species was gearing up for maximum seed production, a reasonable choice reflecting abundant precipitation over the past 10 months. That may not continue to be true if the pendulum has swung, but my observations reflect the results of over 30 inches of precipitation since early August last year. At first glance the restoration looks very similar to last year. The changes seem subtle, but evolutionary changes become revolutionary changes with time. And changes there have been, mostly very heartening. Here’s an early attempt at a list; there is likely to be a more complete roundup with reflections on the year in November or December.

1. Lots more pasqueflowers (Anemone patens) though very few bloomed.
2. Lots more groundplums (Astragalus crassicarpus), perhaps 100 that I have seen so far, after seeing around 20 last year, and 2 or 3 in 2020.
3. More slender milkvetch (A. flexuosus), perhaps 20, rather than the 2 or 3 I saw last year.
4. First prairie milkvetch (A,. adsurgens) found last week.
5. Lots more prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), with most blooming and making seed.
6. Continued increase in black samson (Echinacea angustifolia). There are now thousands across the restoration, and I will likely gather seed from them this fall.
7. Even more slender penstemon (Penstemon gracilis) and white penstemon (P. albidus), with blooms everywhere you look.
8. Lots more leadplant (Amorpha canescens) visible, though most are still humble little plants.
9. Spectacular increase of stiff sunflower (Helianthus pauciflorus), with both more individual plants and colonies forming by rhizomatous growth.
10. Several small areas of meadow rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum) along the main draw, as compared to just seeing a couple plants last year.
11. First yellow sundrops (Calylophus serrulatus) found last week
12. Moderate increase in prairie violet (Viola pedatifida).
13. More American vetch (Vicia americana) blooming. It is possible they have been there, but are visible now that advancing maturity and lots of rain have induced them all to bloom. This is a species that is very cryptic if it doesn’t bloom.
14. Lots of porcupine grass sending out seedheads, perhaps enough to gather some seed. Still no needle and thread, though I remain hopeful.
15. Fewer alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii) made more obvious by the hundreds of flower stalks I see in the relict prairies.
16. Continued slow expansion of the bunchgrasses on the gravel hills.
17. Some decrease in several of the forbs that were purchased in the original seeding, and that are four years old now. This is an interesting topic to monitor to which I may return in a different post.
18. More areas, particularly in better soils, conversely are becoming thick patches of smooth brome (Bromus inermis) or Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis). This is related to the last observation, and also will likely get discussed later.
19. The time I spent with my ATV doing spot treatment of herbicide on the worst thistle patches was well spent, but insufficient. I will be doing more areas this summer (I have already done a bit). I have a first draft of a post on this topic and likely will edit it and get it posted soon.

Still, the bulk of the changes were positive, and I think it is worth looking back again at seeding history to help explain. The entire 100 acres was seeded by the Day County Conservation District in the spring of 2018, but most of the seed ended up on less than half the acres, leaving large areas thin or bare. I gathered and bought a great deal of seed for the land that had missed out and spread almost a full seeding on about 50 acres, and a grass mix on 20 acres that was so overrun by Canada thistles that I knew I would have to use herbicide, only leaving the 30 acres that received a double seeding unspread. I still felt that more should be done, so I decided to attempt to gather as much native forb seed from my relict prairies as possible to spread the next fall. 2019 was a good year for gathering seed, with moderate temperatures and abundant rainfall. In addition, twenty acres of the prairie were burned, stimulating seed production enormously. Much of the pasque seed, the black samson, the penstemons, the leadplant, the porcupine grass and many other species that has been spread on the restoration, and that I am talking about now, was gathered that summer and spread that fall. This means that any that germinated the next spring are entering their third growing season, probably a reasonable time to begin switching from establishing their vegetative beachhead to reproducing. Here are a couple looks at what a lot of the gravel hills, the droughty soils, look like.

The common thread is that after four years the ground is finally almost covered. There are still open spots on the poorer soils, but I can envision a sod now. And because of the sod I can begin to envision the building of some organic matter.

The increases I see in many of the species that I see can come from three different causes. The first is brand new seedlings. While the restoration is entering its fifth year, much of the seed went on three years ago, and some only two years ago. Dormancy varies wildly from seed to seed. Many of the seeds were simply not ready to germinate right away, and needed a prolonged period to overcome that dormancy. This is especially true of many legumes which have both a chemical dormancy overcome by a cold period, and a physical dormancy caused by a hard seed coat that needs to be abraded to let in water. Some may even be new seedlings from seed produced by plants already in the restoration, a second generation. The second cause is demonstrated by the picture above. Many plants spread vegetatively, whether by rhizomes as our friend the sunflower demonstrates above, or simply by enlarging the crown and sending out more shoots from a central location. Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) is a bunchgrass, yet can take over seedings by individual crowns enlarging and putting forth multiple stems. Finally, I am sure many of these plants were already present last year or the year before, but were not noticed because they were humble little plants growing vegetatively close to the ground, and have only become obvious this year after achieving sufficient stature and food storage to boldly bring their flowers to the world. I am slowly becoming better at identifying small vegetative specimens of many species, and for every plant that blooms of some wildflowers there may be several that aren’t blooming.

Above is an example of another way that I am trying to introduce more plants of desired species to the restoration. Dr. Lora Perkins at South Dakota State University (SDSU) grew plugs of several wildflowers from seed that I provided and I have been planting them the past couple weeks. All together perhaps 300 plugs were planted of 10-12 species. The seedling above had probably been in the ground 10-14 days when I took the picture, and still looked ok. Normally I would consider it rooted and successful after that time, but it has been very hot and windy the past few days (about 100 degrees with a 30 mph wind as I type this) and it may be more than the tiny root system will take. Originally I was optimistic that two thirds of the seedlings would live, which I would consider a big success, but after the weather of the last few days I will be ecstatic if half make it (and not surprised if it is far fewer than that).

Finally, I have two new species that can be added to the list for the restoration that I mentioned in the list above. Both yellow sundrops and standing milkvetch are species that I have gathered small amounts of seed for, and thus had only small hopes to see. So now in addition to the 14 plugs of A. adsurgens that I transplanted and am worrying about I have at least one from seed.

In summary, good things are happening at the restoration, and I plan to continue to do things to keep them getting better. Over the next year, more seed will be spread, more seedlings will be planted, more invasive weeds will be controlled and I hope to burn half of it next spring. Big stuff for this old farmer; I’ll let you know how it goes.

Not All Plants Are Created Equal, Part 2

Last spring I wrote a post where I bemoaned the planting of potentially maladapted seed in my restorations, seed sourced from gentler climes, that would not be able to take the relatively cold, dry conditions of my gravel hills on the Prairie Coteau. I introduced the idea of starting a venture of increasing seed from my prairies in small production plots, both for my own use and potentially for sale or gift to other practitioners of prairie restoration. Here’s an update of progress that has been made, and an extension of the concept.

First, I am not going to be the main “farmer” of my prairie species. My physical resources are too limited to add another time consuming and strenuous activity. I am still trying to keep developing my own restorations, and even there I am relying on occasional help. I am fortunate that my young partner, Ben Lardy, has an interest in the concept, and the first plots will be on his place. While I certainly hope to use most of the seed on my fields, originally, if there is ever an actual business that comes from this it will be Ben’s business. I literally have no interest in making any money from the seed, and definitely have no interest in the sorts of activities that would be necessary to create such a business. There are many seedhouses specializing in native seed, and I’m sure we could find one that was interested in our product, should we have excess to sell.

There are many issues, though. We don’t really have a facility to process seed, getting it shelled out of seedheads/seedpods. We don’t have a setup for stratification of the seed, storing it in a damp medium in a refrigerator to mimic seed out on the land over winter , which is necessary for most species to germinate. We don’t have a way to easily scarify seed with a hard seed coat, scratching a break in the seed coat to allow water in. There is an infrastructure that every seedhouse has that we lack. So, to begin, we will beg for assistance. I am not proud. Dr. Lora Perkins at SDSU, who has a native seed project with a lab, greenhouse space and student labor, is providing advice and help. I had scored points by giving her seed that I had gathered to work with, and she has been very gracious in providing advice, and she will start seedlings of some of my selections which I shall buy to transplant. The saying is usually that “I have more time than money.” My version is that I have “more money than time and energy”. Gathering resources in my world is almost always more about supporting and cultivating friendships than any tangible resource. I feel very rich in those resources.

And there is so much more! I had a wonderful visit in Fargo recently with Marissa Ahlering and Nina Hill with the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Juli Bosmoe, Sarah Hewitt and Jodi Meisch from Audubon Dakota (Audubon). Besides the joy it was to hang out with such an engaging, dynamic group of young women (with the added treat that I got to hold Sarah’s baby for half an hour) the topic that I went to Fargo to discuss was a database that TNC is putting together documenting native prairie species in a geographic information services program (GIS) with the stated purpose of creating a database of seed collection sites. There are many barriers to this developing its potential as a general resource to the conservation community, starting with privacy and access issues, but if that is resolved, there is the huge job to enter all of that data, particularly because it has to be done in the field to get the specific GPS tags on the various populations. However, what started as an in-house attempt to help their crews more efficiently find and gather seed has the potential to be so much more. If we are thinking big enough, including not only conservation non-profits such as TNC and Audubon, but public agencies and private citizens like me, we can create a restoration culture that supports the attempts of amateurs that might otherwise never dream to attempt such a thing.

I have been reading on the TNC website recently that a significant limiting factor in the plans to reforest millions of acres is the lack of tree seedlings to plant. The same is basically true for locally adapted prairie seed. I could see, for example, seed from two or three discrete sources being grown by us, perhaps at different sites to limit cross pollination. Or perhaps they should be grown together to provide for purposeful cross pollination. The very nature of the fragmentation of prairies means that there might need to be rejuvenation of the genetic base by jumping out of the narrow mindset that could allow genetic drift to impoverish the plants’ genomes. Small populations of any type lose traits, they lose genetic possibilities through random happenstance. Maybe we can combat that.

This post is definitely getting into the realm of “talking smart”. I know enough genetics to sound like I know what I am talking about when I really don’t know crap. Big topics need big talk, however. The loss of biodiversity is just as important and just as real for plants as it is for animals. I will bring that back to my humble restorations in another post.

Biotic Space, Biotic Opportunities

After a prolonged period during which I was either traveling to Chicago, in the Twin Cities working on the house we own there (which is happily now rented out for a few months), or sick, I was finally able to get out to the restoration to walk around. I had some seed that had been stratifying in the refrigerator for a couple months to get spread and really needed the opportunity to just get out to look around. This has been an abysmal spring, and with my other issues, I have basically missed it. How many more springs will I feel physically able to walk in the prairies, I wonder? The mind goes to dark places during a prolonged illness, and I was feeling my time is short and precious. Your time is short and precious as well, by the way, even if you are a strong young millenial in the prime of your physical life. Opportunities must be grasped and throttled, or manfactured from the air, but they are there and need to be used. Here are a few things I saw today.

A little irony in the new groundpum find, as I was tossing out some groundplum seed when I came across this one. I found about 12-15 plants last year, primarily across a long eroded ridge just south of the little hill where I found this one. Legumes are gold, and I love my groundplums, so finding a new one is always a happy event. So far this spring I have found 50 or more. This is one of the species that I have worked at most diligently in the restoration, and I really hope to establish an actual population. Compatriots are as close as a hundred yards away in the nearby pasture, so I hope that cross pollination will occur. These are blooming a couple days earlier than the groundplums in my relict prairies because of less competition from a grass sod, but I think this is a long-lived species, so there is time for love to find a way.

Most of the violets in my native prairies are Nuttall’s violets (Viola nuttallii), a yellow blooming species, but I wanted to add some violets to my restoration to provide food for regal frittilary butterfly larvae, and it is very difficult to buy the seed of Nuttall’s violets. Thus I bought some prairie violet. I have them growing here and there. I hope they spread, as they tend to be pretty ubiquitious in other prairies in the area.

It was a big surprise when I started finding clumps of pussytoes in the restoration. Seed is expensive, and hard to gather, so I was only able to get a little seed out there, but wandering around I regularly come upon plants.

This is a big, happy success! I had identified several pasque plants vegetatively the past couple years, but this is the first bloom I have seen in my restoration. Three years ago we were able to gather a great deal of seed and I literally spent hours picking out seeds a few at a time and releasing them into the wind across the hilltops of the west half of the restoration. Pasque is pretty conservative, in that you only really find it in relict prairies; it doesn’t seed itself into tame pastures. I have read that it is very difficult to get it to grow from seed, but I guess you get lucky sometimes, and I am very happy to have found it. This is shaping up to be a good year for seed collection of this species, so I hope to get a bunch to spread on the new restoration.

Prairie smoke is not uncommon in the adjacent prairie, and I know several other prairies where I can find it, but I have never been able to gather much. So, just as with the prairie violet, I broke down the second year of the restoration and bought some. It’s very difficult to seed, as the feathery awns weave themselves into a tight ball, so once again several tedious hours were spent wandering across the restoration trying to pull a few seeds loose at a time to release into a breeze. I have found quite a few in my limited opportunities to get out to the restoration this spring, perhaps a hundred or so that are blooming now.

Biotic space is the theme for this post, and the clearest example is what a wet fall and early spring has done on some of the bare areas remaining on the worst eroded hillsides. Moss has found its way to those soils and is making use of the sunlight and water. Nutrients are obviously very limiting, but mosses have the ability to make do with very little. Usually, mosses are thought of as growing in shady woods, but in this case the excess moisture of the past several months have given this moss the opportunity to grow. I hope to follow these areas through the course of the summer to see how they respond to heat and dessication later. As interesting as the moss is, I would prefer to see blue grama colonizing and spreading to provide more erosion control. On the other hand, I should perhaps withhold judgement and enjoy observing the moss.

All these plants were found in areas where there is still open space to colonize. At least that is my assumption, but we only see what is above the ground, and in these very droughty soils the real competition might be below the ground. Today I was also planting seedlings that I received from Dr. Lora Perkins at South Dakota State University (SDSU). I brought her the seed from my relict prairies, and she has incorporated it into her work on native plant propagation at SDSU and in return was kind enough to trade me back a bunch of seedlings of several species. We will see how much biotic space there really is. I accept that I may be wasting the effort, but I hope to see some more prairie turnips out there in the future.

How much more biotic space do I have, personally? how many more openings can I insert myself into? It hasn’t been a great spring to feel very confident as to the future, so I am trying very hard to concentrate my efforts, enjoy some opportunities, and generally to make productive use of what little energy I can gather. Onward!

Postscript: Two weeks after writing this I was out planting some plugs of a couple species and realized that I had failed to add another obvious response to empty space in a planting. Many plants engage in colonial, or clonal growth. They send rhizomes out to scout out possibilities. Last summer was hot and dry until August 10 or so, after which all hell broke loose meteorologically. Any plant that could make use of the rain in September and October would be able to make substantial growth and gain an advantage on plants that were done with the year, or simply grow into the empty space. Here are a couple examples that I came across, but there are more.

The common threads are that in each case there was a seedling that developed over the past two or three years into a plant that had sufficient photosynthate to make a lot of rhizomatous growth. Roots with the ability to form nodes with meristematic tissue (think stem cells) grew laterally. Those nodes then started to send their own roots down into the soil and formed a shoot that came through the surface and begins to make its own food. If you pull or dig out any of those shoots you will find it has its own crown and root system, but that it is also tethered to a lateral root that goes back to the original plant (or an older shoot from earlier rhizomatous growth. Nothing is free; putting lots of energy into the rhizomes means that many or most of these shoots may not send flowers up. The food goes into growth under the surface, instead. However, if the year is kind there is the potential for a great number of flowering stalks trying to make seed. We will see what the year brings.

The Prairie Working Group

Late last summer I hosted a field day at my restoration for a group of conservation professionals from a variety of NGO’s and several employees of the state of South Dakota. We had a great day of wandering around and I asked questions regarding several facets of management that the group discussed. Taken as an isolated event it was a valuable and fun experience, one that I hoped to repeat on another occasion. Recently several things have come together to expand my hopes for the group.

First, this goes back to my visit with Dave Ode, about whom I wrote an earlier blog post, and his efforts at raising seed from collections of a variety of native milkweeds. He considered them foundation seed, samples worth increasing and planting in pollinator gardens and restorations. This inspired me to consider engaging in a similar effort, raising some seed from selections in my prairies, particularly several species that are difficult or impossible to purchase. That effort will hopefully begin this growing season. No individual selection is “special”, except as a particular genetic response chance and to its environment, which means that perhaps multiple selections are needed from different environments.

Then, a couple months ago I began communicating with Nina Hill, an employee of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). I travelled to Fargo to have a visit with Nina about becoming a part of an effort to document populations of prairie species in a database that TNC had begun. Marissa Ahlering, Science Director for TNC for the region, joined the meeting for a while, and we discussed the potential use of the database to guide efforts in native seed collection. Marissa has written and talked about the need to broaden the seed sources for new restorations to bring more genetic resilience to them. In effect to “seed” the genetics that might be helpful to respond to climate change or other challenges that we might not be able to foresee. The assumption, again, is that selections of the same species from prairie remnants separated geographically would have differences in their genomes.

The next push occurred after a visit to Dr. Lora Perkins, a professor in Natural Resources at South Dakota State University (SDSU). Dr. Perkins has a native plant material project, researching and increasing seed from a large variety of native species. This has already been done by private companies, so it may seem like reinventing the wheel, but private companies are understandably concerned that they make money, and so are inevitably going to have different goals and outcomes than a public effort. If they find a particular seed source that is easy to grow and has an attractive bloom other characteristics might not be considered, and that one genotype can become the only one offered for sale. Towards the end of our visit Dr. Arvid Boe, an old friend of mine, came to her office and we discussed his extensive efforts at growing native selections over the past forty years. Once more the concept of a native selection as foundation seed came up. At the end of the visit Lora mentioned her desire to start a native prairie seed bank.

All these disparate efforts around the topic of native seeds have a very strong unifying thread. It is that the seed is valuable and that sources of that seed need to be both broader genetically and in larger quantities than is presently available. Why? And what are the implications?

Over the past forty years at my business I have come across many prairie remnants, both hayland and pasture. This has given me what I have come to realize was a skewed view of their abundance. I know of many remnants primarily because I have covered a lot of ground over the last forty years. There are not many roads or dirt trails that I have not gone down in my territory, an area of perhaps 1500 square miles. When I go over this history in my mind, however, I realize both that these remnants are not that common, and that they are slowly but surely decreasing both in number and quality. Several have been converted to crop ground, many of the pastures have been sprayed with herbicides, and even the practice of fertilizing hayland to increase hay production harms native species by giving an advantage to the introduced cool season grasses which are ubiquitous in our native grass. I am coming to feel that a high quality prairie remnant is not just “neat” or “cool”, but important and precious.

On my own farm there is a pasture adjacent to the farmstead that the dairy cows used. When I was growing up I dug prairie turnips and gathered pasqueflowers there. I’m sure it was overgrazed, but there were a lot of native forbs still there fifty years ago. I have looked at it recently and found only a few remnants hanging on in the worst soils, the rest having fallen victim to the combination of herbicide applications, nitrogen fertilization and overgrazing. It has basically become a tame grass pasture and the herbicides and fertilizer are perhaps justified now, though I haven’t allowed their use since I bought the land. Multiply that experience a thousand fold and you have the prairies of eastern South Dakota.

This is simply the “island effect”. Small populations can disappear, whether from a catastrophic event such as the plow or a broadcast herbicide application, a significant weather event, or the competition of invasive species. While well planned grazing can be a benefit to prairies, much grazing is done in a way that weakens native species. In small populations the diversity of the genome is degraded as traits are lost even though the species is still present. The world is a dangerous, competitive place, and in the arena of holding on to natural diversity size matters. Protective easements will not totally protect small prairies, and an occasional burn will only slow the process of the spread of invasive species. Every year populations of native species are disappearing from small prairies, and unique alleles, unique genes or combinations of genes from the larger meta-population, disappear. Without the support of a more diverse plant population available to re-seed, and the ability to bring back genetic traits through cross pollination, that species and that genetics is unlikely to return.

Bemoaning this trend is not the purpose of this post, however. Mourning is for the dead and the patient is not dead. Over the past five years 230 acres of prairie restorations have been my response, increasing the area around my remnants with new populations, those new plants coming from a combination of seed gathered from my own prairies, from other prairies and from seed that I purchase. In a sense I am enlarging the island, both in total population of a particular species, but also in the variety of genetic possibilities existing within that population. Some islands cannot be expanded geographically because land is not available, but can still be made more resilient by adding reinforcements by topdressing new seed. I hope to begin doing that on some of my existing prairie after I have finished seeding new areas.

And I am not alone. There is already a community of like minded people who are doing restorations of varying complexity. This is why seed is important. Relying only on seedhouses to provide the material for a restoration means that one is limited in species and is definitely limited in genetic diversity within the species that are available. It means a simplified palette for the greater biotic community to work with. Fewer pollinators have the right partners to pollinate; fewer insect larvae have the right food to eat; fewer bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes and all the varieties of life in the soil are able to flourish. However, over the past thirty years we have gone from CRP plantings of smooth brome, a non-native species, to plantings of 8-10 native species (which was the standard “diverse” planting when I put in my first patch of CRP twelve years ago) to many plantings of 30-40 species today. Maybe that can become 100 species with diverse genomes, ready to grow up and be somebody. The conservation community has grown, and has become aware of the benefits of true diversity. It needs the material to do a proper job.

This brings us back to the original topic, the idea of the prairie working group. For me, the big question is simply whether there are significant advantages with the efforts of a group over the sum of the individual efforts. Put another way, is it worth it to join forces? Or to ask a related question: What important activities can a group accomplish?

Obviously a group can be valuable simply as an excuse to meet and share information and discuss ideas. I deeply believe in the creativity inherent in the ferment of discussion and disagreement, and believe that we have much to learn from other’s experiences.

Let’s also return to the visits I mentioned earlier. Can a group provide the opportunity to expand and enhance the depth and power of TNC’s database? Can it become an addition to Lora Perkins’ project, whether through providing selections to increase, or working on the other end and taking some of Lora’s Foundation Seed and increasing in plots to provide larger amounts of seed to restorations and for the seed bank? Can we step outside of our parochial concerns to share and trade seed that we gather, creating richer, more resilient restorations? Can we share information of opportunities for restorations? For years I have dreamt about purchasing a property with the stated goal of restoring and perhaps then re-selling it after an easement is in place, but such a venture is too large for me at my age. It may not be too large for the group.

My flights of fancy are fine and might even be useful, but I think that the idea of identifying as many remnants as possible and cataloguing the species they contain is a worthy goal even if nothing else is accomplished. I could succumb to my own “island effect” one day soon. As a population of one the information in my brain is at great risk. If there is a group of like minded people and a database that has information on my prairies, then the resources on my land have a chance to be valuable to others and to the restorations that they will work on. Multiply this by the contributions of others from the group, and we may have something significant to give. I hope to set up a meeting soon, and then we can start to decide what is possible, and whether others think there are advantages to combining efforts.

This is exciting stuff for an old guy such as myself. I often think about what the “elders” of the world have to offer. While we are no longer as energetic or active as we once were, neither do we have the pressures of busy jobs or raising a family. And, hopefully, our experiences can provide some insight into how to manage some of the issues that occur with any project. We will see what we come up with.

Oak Savanna Dreams

I’m sitting here at the computer as the wind howls outside waiting for updates on a potential snowstorm tomorrow. Our place isn’t nearly as remote as the farm where I grew up, and where my restorations are, but it’s still on a township road 15 miles from town. One can feel isolated when the weather is tough, and because of my history of ER visits (about 10 in the last 3-4 years), it makes my wife nervous. We’ve talked for several years about moving, at least for the winter, to avoid that risk.

Three and a half years ago we bought a house in the Twin Cities for our daughter to live in, in a first ring suburb called Roseville, about a half mile from the city limits of St. Paul. She lived in it until last October, when she and her new husband moved to Orange County, California for job opportunities. So now we have an empty house in a well maintained area that we are doing some work on. Originally this was preparatory to renting it our while we decided what the long term plan for the house was. Now, however, we are considering using it as our winter home. Everything we need, including a couple medical providers that I already use, is within 3-4 miles, meaning city traffic is less of an issue than one would think. There is one very large barrier, at least for me, however; what the hell do I do with my time in a city?

One thing I have already done is to start a relationship with the Minnesota Land Trust (MLT) as a volunteer monitor of easement properties. That doesn’t help me much in the winter as monitoring is a summer activity, and the properties so far are in Western Minnesota, closer to our South Dakota farm than to the Twin Cities, but it’s an entry into relationships I wouldn’t otherwise have and to properties in conservation ownership. One of those properties, about halfway between, or two hours from each, is a terribly interesting property owned by Ann Gustafson. Its got a house, a couple cottages, some small pastures that she rents to a neighboring organic beef producer. some pollinator plantings, a small orchard and perhaps 200 acres of overgrown oak woodland. Her son, Frank, who is in law school, is engaged in the Herculean task of attempting to reclaim the woods from many, many acres of European buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) by going out day after day and using a brush cutter and a chain saw to clear areas during the summer.

Well, it’s pretty freaking impressive. This property is the legacy of Ann’s dad, Wally, who was a lawyer in Willmar (as Ann is), a legislator, and obviously a very cool guy. They love their property, want to honor that legacy by doing right by the land, and have several projects there. In my eyes, however, they’re lacking a strategic plan, and that’s most obvious in the buckthorn project. If they are able to eradicate buckthorn from substantial areas of their property, they will have a large empty biotic space that will need to be filled. Is it going to be filled by buckthorn, by annual weeds, by some other invasive shrub? Or can we fill that space with something that will provide some ecosystem services to contribute to the world? The three pillars of savanna restoration seem to be removing unwanted vegetation, planting species adapted to the partial shade of a savanna and maintaining with continued shrub/invasive species removal and fire. What specific combination of those three activities will make this property a shining light?

MLT has a small crew dedicated to restoration of landscapes, so I have attempted to put them in contact with Ann and Frank, but the way of the world is that everyone is always very busy. There are always limitations in time, money and energy. If you go back 150 years this wasn’t oak woodland or forest, it was probably oak savanna. One hundred miles west where I live there was prairie, not oak savanna, so my experience is less than thin, it is translucent; I needed the backup of MLT, which I wasn’t confident I could get. I have been pondering this as the wind blows and the temperature and dry air keeps me from living outside.

Then, two weeks ago, I saw an invitation to join the virtual annual meeting of The Prairie Enthusiasts, a land trust who is primarily engaged in the care for and rehabilitation of prairies intertwined with oak savannas in southern Wisconsin and southeast Minnesota. The theme for about fifteen speakers centered around the restoration and rehabilitation of oak savannas with the title: “Inspired by Resilience”. Perfect! Even though I hate Zoom meetings I made myself watch about half the presentations. I’m not sure that it was “resilience” that did it, but I am definitely inspired now. Oak savannas are not scattered oak trees with grass in between. They are not even scattered oaks with prairie in between. They are a true hybrid; an amalgam, that was stabilized by fires that kept the weedy shrubs from taking over. Their forb diversity has aspects of both oak woodland and tallgrass prairie, and as such, a functioning savanna is more diverse than either. The conference was capped by a presentation by Dr. Doug Tallamy, author of “Nature’s Best Hope”, a bestselling book whose main thesis is the good that could be done by suburban homeowners planting native species, particularly oaks, because of the deep symbiotic relationships oaks have with life forms from bears to countless insects to a myriad of species in the soil. I have a new cause. complimentary to my present love of prairie restoration, and accessible from the Twin Cities. I need to become an oak savanna restoration practitioner.

Before I can do that I need to learn a lot more about the biome, and I have started by pulling out my old A. W. Kuchler map of the “Potential Natural Vegetation of the United States”. I remember being interested by the significant area of the Midwest that was labeled a mosaic of Oak-Hickory forest and Tallgrass Prairie, and assumed that was how the oak savanna region would be designated. But, no, there was a separate designation for oak savanna, perhaps 10000 square miles in Wisconsin and Minnesota, with the two dominant and presumably diagnostic genera being oaks and bluestem grasses. Interestingly, this conflicts with some speakers at the conference, who talked about the partial shade of the savanna giving an advantage to C3 grasses such as needlegrasses and ryegrasses over C4 grasses like big bluestem and indiangrass. One speaker took it a step farther and emphasized the primacy of forbs, both prairie and woodland species, over even the grasses. And multiple speakers referenced the necessity of fire to providing a veneer of stability to a very dynamic system. The longevity and the aggressive rooting of oaks will otherwise eventually prevail and oak savanna will tend towards oak woodland, or often to oaks with a very messy shrub understory such as Ann’s property.

So that’s the big idea on one way to integrate me into urban life. There are many resources, both human and other, that I can access in the Twin Cities, most not too far from where our house is, to learn about and create restoration plans for oak savanna. This could be for Ann and Frank or for another property. Looking at the websites of the many conservation organizations based in and near the Twin Cities I see multiple references to oak savanna restoration projects, so it might be as simple as volunteering with the right group to facilitate my education. If anything of substance happens regarding this idea I will check back in. There will likely be more ideas, but this has given me hope and invigorated the anticipation of a new winter home.

What Have I Accomplished So Far?

I could probably rearrange the words and turn it into: “What I have accomplished so far!”, but that would imply certainty and confidence that I don’t feel. I vacillate between elation at some of my successes and worry about what I often perceive as failures, with emphasis on the failures. However, this would be a boring and frustrating post if every sentence ended with a question mark, so I will be bold and list some things that I have done and perhaps leave open what to call them. I have put much of this in several earlier posts, but wish to consolidate the story that began in 2017 with applying to put some of my land into the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). And again, we start with a map.

This map is not the map that I created after an early assessment of the seeding success stemming from the seeding by the Day County Conservation District in June of 2018, which I have used in several posts. I had created a map with four zones. Most of the seed ending up in just one zone, about 30 acres in the south central part of the field;, some seed dropped in the areas in the southwest and the northeast part of the restoration, and almost no seed in the rest. I was heartbroken, but decided to just keep applying seed until, hopefully, I had something useful. Thus, supplemental seedings were done on all zones other than the 30 acres which already had plenty of seed. Some areas had three additions of seed over the next year, both gathered and purchased. Much of the restoration was an awkward mishmash of situations that time and development is now clarifying. That clarity has induced me to create a new map delineating management zones shown below.

Zone 1: The Big Success!!!

This area, roughly the northwest half of the restoration, was almost empty six months after the original seeding. There was a very obvious boundary with Zone 2 where almost all the seed had dropped. Boundaries aren’t as distinct as the map above because the tractor operator obviously became aware that there were problems with the seed bridging in the seed tank, and would go push it down, after which the seed would flow for a bit. Most of the plants in Zone 1, however, are from the supplemental seedings, and many of the forbs are from the native seed gathered in 2018 and 2019. Here are a few views, beginning with two from 2019 of the empty wasteland it was at that time, and followed by three from 2021 of the verdant prairie it is becoming.

Most of Zone 1 has not just filled in, but carries a wonderfully diverse assortment of forbs. After much angst the first couple years, some of it documented in other blog posts, it is a resounding success and where I always take visitors. Going forward, this is the area where I will spend the most time, attempting to manage it to keep, or perhaps grow, forb diversity and to give the most effort towards enhancing it as Dakota skipper habitat. The poor stand that was attained by the original seeding in much of this area was a gift that I didn’t deserve (Do we ever truly deserve anything?). I say that, as it induced me to gather the large quantities of native forb seed that were spread several different times over the course of the last three years. Yes, I have added more seed even this year, after stating repeatedly that I was finished spreading seed, and even more additions are possible in the future if I am strong.

An example is the addition of two wildflowers that hold special significance to me because I knew them (and ate them) as a kid; groundplum milkvetch (Astragalus crassicarpus), and prairie turnip (Pediomelum esculenta). This past year I have wandered appropriate areas of Zone 1 and carefully dropped seeds into open areas and the little spoil piles dug out by pocket gophers and badgers, placing individual seed in places where there is some potential room to develop. Finding those two species in my restoration has given me much satisfaction and I want to increase their populations to give them sufficient density to allow cross pollination. I have also saved some seed back of these, and several other species of wildflowers in order to prepare the seed this winter with both the cold period they would receive out on the ground, but also scarification, breaking through the hard seed coat with abrasion. Then they can be seeded early next spring ready to go, well dressed for the party, I have given some of that seed to Dr. Lora Perkins at South Dakota State University to and will pay her project to start seedlings that I can transplant to establish. There are other examples of wildflowers that I would like to add or augment that will involve time and energy that I am not sure I will have, but will keep in mind for when opportunities arise.

A larger goal for this zone is to begin to document not only the flora, which I have done, but the fauna. It would be very interesting to hook up with an entomologist who could help me document the insect diversity that I hope is finding my plants, and perhaps a microbiologist who could help me document any changes in microbial life. This winter will hopefully allow me to make some new contacts who can help.

Zone 2: A Success

You may notice that there are no exclamation points in this heading. Zone 2 is based around the original Zone 1 along with some of the low ground that I called Zone 2 on the original map. It has much better soils than the new Zone 1, has many more plants attributable to the purchased seed of the original seeding, and has only a few plants that trace to seed that I have gathered. It is exactly what people think of when they think of a prairie restoration, with all the common species that are used in plantings over this region, and though I spend much less time here than in the new Zone 1, I believe that it is providing almost all the ecosystem services I hope for. Because of the combination of earlier grass establishment and better soils that allow a thicker sod than in Zone 1 there is little point in spending many resources adding new seed. There is simply not enough biotic room to justify the cost when I have better uses for the seed. New seed is not likely to be able to find a home, at least until I introduce some disturbance to shake up the original homesteaders. The main activity I am engaging in here is to do some spot-treating of the worst thistles, in an attempt to allow for more of the native plant materials to flourish. Though it is not as much fun for me as Zone 1, I am pleased with the results. Two representative photos are below.

Zone 3: A Success, Sort of …

Zone 3 on the new map is primarily the old Zone 4, the thistle management zone, 25 acres on the east side of the restoration that adjoin a farmed field. After two applications of herbicide in 2019 and 2020, thistle populations were much reduced, most of the few forbs that had grown were eliminated, and the native grass mix that I re-seeded in 2019 is filling in. The combination of the thistle treatment and the lack of forb seed that was seeded here means that it is almost a pure, very diverse, grass seeding, with perhaps 15 species of native grass plus brome and Kentucky bluegrass. The list of ecosystem services this area is providing is shorter: we won’t be feeding nectar or pollen to many insects here, and even carbon sequestration will be less because of the lack of legumes to provide nitrogen for the grasses. I have begun to topdress wildflower seed in some areas where the grass is thin and there is still potential room for new seedlings. It will be very interesting if I see anything at all next year, or whether I threw away five hundred dollars. In any case, I am heartened by the positive things that have been accomplished here and no longer feel I have wasted my attempts, even if I hesitate to call this a prairie restoration. If nothing else, it is a buffer from the cropped field to the east, providing some space to insure against insecticide drift reaching the area with good pollinator habitat. Thus I am pleased with the results here, though it is only because I compare it to the absolute disaster that it was in the spring of 2019.

I no longer have the illusion that I am done with active management or improvement of the original 100 acre restoration. My guess is that I will be gainfully employed here until I am no longer able to do the work. What I do from now on will only enhance ecosystem services incrementally, if at all, but I know I will be compelled to immerse myself in the landscape and look forward to all that might entail.

Next Year

In the upper right corner of the map at the beginning of the post is a block labeled “2022 seeding”. I had not included this in the original restoration for two reasons. First, it was already overwhelming to be attempting a restoration on 100 acres, both in work and expense. Another 20 acres was just too much. Mainly though, I was just uncomfortable taking that many acres out of farming, In my heart and soul I am a farmer, and at that point I decided that I couldn’t give myself to the project that completely. The heart is a fickle thing, however, and I have a new love. My confidence that my restoration is a good thing, a moral decision, has grown immeasurably over the past four years. In addition, my confidence in my abilities to accomplish a restoration has also grown immeasurably, buttressed by the results detailed above. As we used to say about our abilities to perform a task when I was growing up: “We’re not just pissing around here!” While I’d been considering adding these 20 acres to the restoration for the past couple years, an event occurred last summer to close the deal.

As stated in several previous posts, the biggest driver of this project was the discovery of Dakota skipper butterflies on my native prairie, a federally listed species. My restoration would adjoin the prairie where the skippers had been found, and provide at best an extension of habitat, and at worst a buffer from surrounding cropped ground. The adjoining farm field, including the 20 acres that I hope to seed, was in soybeans in 2021 and became infested with bean leaf beetles. The renter, who understandably didn’t want to lose appreciable soybean yield to the hungry invader, had a plane apply an insecticide. While the application was at least a quarter mile away from the area where the threatened butterflies had been found in the past, it was a reminder of the fragility of the situation. Very little use of insecticide is made in this area, but insect populations are dynamic, and it could happen again next year. And I am not just concerned with Dakota skippers, but the whole panoply of insect and other life that might use the restoration. In this case bigger is definitely better, so there will be 20 new acres seeded next year.

The Huggett Restoration, Soon to be a Success

This leads to a different attempt at restoration, 20 acres in the northwest quarter of the section that I call the Huggett ground, that was originally seeded in November of 2020. I have recently written a blog entry on this so I won’t belabor the story, but the condensed version is that it looks like nothing is growing but a lot of weeds until you get down to look closely.

This restoration doesn’t look like much yet, not even in close, as there is a lot of space between native plant seedlings. However, it looks much better than most of the 100 acre restoration did at a similar point. Because of the lessons I learned on that restoration I have recently completed a supplemental seeding and have been diligently spot-treating the invasive thistles and wormwood sage. The Huggett restoration is already developing some good bones which will hopefully develop as the years go by.

The Success of Relationships

Something I don’t hesitate to label an accomplishment is the connections I have made with the greater conservation community through the restorations. Many people in the business are very interested in a project like mine, particularly because it is primarily independent of their efforts, which perhaps makes it a bit inspirational. I am not unique, except as all of us are unique. There are others who would like to create such a project, or perhaps would come to that goal if they saw what is possible. That is one reason for me to keep moving forward, to turn this farm into something that is both a demonstration of what is possible, but also perhaps an inspiration to reach for more than what is normally being done. A prairie restoration is often a seeding of 25 or 30 commonly available species purchased and blended at a seedhouse. With good luck in establishment, such a restoration can provide many ecosystem services, but I think there is more to reach for. The models I follow are the many prairie restorations in other areas of the upper Midwest much larger and more diverse than mine. However, I know of nothing comparable in the combination of scope and diversity of my restorations within 100 miles of my farm. Landowners who would consider such a project can be educated and cultivated to create projects that can be small “clawbacks” from our anthropogenic landscape to the natural world. Conservation professionals have the contacts to extend their reach beyond the resources within their organizations and governmental entities, and to help create a larger restoration community, and I hope that this project can provide a local example to consider and improve upon. There is a land trust, The Prairie Enthusiasts, which has several chapters in southern Wisconsin which is both protecting native prairie remnants and acting as a learning group for prairie restorations they are undertaking. Why don’t I organize such a group myself? Sadly, I no longer have the time and energy, and such an undertaking is very difficult without the ability to speak. I think I have found my calling, to work on my farm to create a model for others to consider, an example to ponder and to learn from, and perhaps then to show others. That is what this “used up” old farm boy can aspire towards, what I can reach for. My winter is for continuing to deepen the relationships that I have, perhaps expand that to some new people, and to plan what steps can be taken to enhance both the restoration of my farm and to magnify its worth to society.

You may have noticed that I have used the word “success” several times in my headings. I proudly proclaim that I am a determined optimist. While “best” may not be attainable, “better” is always in view, a beacon to draw one forward. The glass isn’t half full or half empty, it is simply under the pitcher being filled. Success is inherently a subjective concept, giving me the freedom to choose what I define as successful, but I hope that it is justified in the results on the ground so far, and in the possibilities around the bend. It’s been an extremely rewarding four years of work. We will enter 2022 very soon and wonderful things await.