The Never Ending Seeding

Near the end of the year I thought it an opportune time to summarize the past couple years attempts to bring a prairie restoration to life on my land in Day County, South Dakota. Much of the work that was done in 2017 and 2018 has been discussed in other posts, but it seemed worthwhile to integrate that work with what has been done the past year in a single post.

Over the summer and fall of 2017 I planned for and received a contract to put 154 acres into the continuous CRP program, split between the wetland restoration program (CP 23) and the pollinator habitat program (CP 42). Much of the CP 23 CRP, 54 acres, was on my northeast quarter, following a linear wetland that bisects the quarter. This was seeded to a diverse mix of native species (about 25 species) by the conservation district in November of 2017. I was not attempting to do a comprehensive restoration on this land because the shape of the tract meant issues with pesticide drift were inevitable. Thus, I had limited goals for the services this land would provide.

The remainder, 100 acres on the southwest quarter where I planned to do a more complete restoration, were not able to be seeded at the same time because of concern I had for herbicide carryover on a few acres which had been spot-treated for tall waterhemp control in the soybeans in July, 2017. The spring of 2018 was late and wet, and it was mid-June before the field was seeded by staff of the Day County Conservation District with their drill. There were three different seed mixes for three different range sites: xeric, dry mesic and mesic. Each mix had 30-35 different species purchased through Milborn Seeds in Brookings, South Dakota. In addition to the official seed mix I spread seed that I had gathered the past growing season from adjacent native prairies I own, seed that had been gathered by Ben Lardy, a Pheasants Forever employee working in Day County and a variety of small amounts of seed that I had purchased from Prairie Moon Seeds in Minnesota. These were spread in appropriate areas about the same time.

I realized that the timing of the seeding precluded the seeds undergoing stratification, a period of cold needed to overcome dormancy, so my expectations for what I would see that summer were modest. However, even my modest expectations were dashed by what I observed. It became evident that the mixtures of seed had bridged in the drill box, and large areas had not been seeded. Perhaps 40 acres were showing no seedlings, 30 acres were showing scattered seedlings and 30 acres were already looking well established by Labor Day last year (most likely those 30 acres had received 70-80% of the seed). Most distressing, the largest empty area adjoined a native grass pasture where Dakota skipper (Hesperia dacotae) butterflies had been found. One of the main drivers for the project had been to extend the habitat for these skippers and so far I had nothing for them.

Zone 1: 30 acres of dry mesic soils which have an excellent stand from the original seeding

Zone 2: 30 acres which showed scattered seedling growth by fall, 2018. The two main areas include both the wettest and the most xeric soils on the field. Thus, even though I have it listed as one zone it is actually managed as about four.

Zone 3: Zero stand on about 25 acres of mostly xeric soils in the heart of the restoration.

Zone 4: Zero stand on 15 acres of mesic soils adjoining the farm field.

During the summer and fall of 2018 I gathered substantial amounts of seed from my prairies, as well as several other prairies owned by friends, and augmented that with seed gathered by Ben Lardy. After evaluating what we had, I further augmented that with seed purchased from Milborns, primarily grasses. In November we spread this on Zones 2 and 3, with emphasis on Zone 3 near the skipper habitat, adding 20-25 seeds per square foot. On Zone 4 we spread primarily purchased seed, including what Milborns calls “Native Harvest” mix, seed harvested directly from a native prairie. All this would receive a full stratification over winter, putting the fall seeding on track to jump out of the ground in 2019. And in order to put the maximum effort in improving Zones 2,3 and 4 I had to accept that Zone 1 would be what it was.

Over the long winter of 2018/2019 I thought about all the problems of the 2018 seeding, all the weak spots and all the mistakes I had made. I decided that it was worthwhile to continue to provide even more seed to provide a veneer of redundancy to cover some of those mistakes. Here is the plan those winter musings became.

First, I was still concerned with the barren hills on Zone 3. Here is what it looked like in late May, 2019, a year after seeding:

Though I had worked very hard to cover this area with seed the previous fall I bought and blended about 15 species, all with minimal seed dormancy, to attempt to get more seedlings started on the gravelly hills. Ben brought the broadcast seeder out once more and we spread another 15 seeds/square foot on the 25 acres of Zone 3 and 15 adjacent acres of xeric soils of Zone 2.

During the summer and fall of 2019 I once more obsessively gathered seed from my prairies. Building upon the knowledge gained the past two seasons, and upon what turned into a good year for seed production, I was able to make more efficient use of my time, both in knowing locations to find various species and in having a better feel for the “Goldilocks” timing for harvest. I was able to gather 8-10 new species and gathered much larger amounts of 15-20 species that I had gathered minimal amounts of in 2018. It was a very successful and enjoyable venture.

Once more Ben brought out the broadcast seeder and after blending my gathered seed with some additional grass seed it was spread over all of Zone 3, all but the wetter areas of Zone 2 and a few adjacent acres of the Zone 1. About another 10-15 seeds per square foot were spread.

We spread a different seed mix over Zone 4, the 15 acres on the east side next to the farm field. It had been too wet to seed in the spring, but I had also been neglecting that area for another reason. A bad infestation of Canada thistle had established itself during the summer of 2018, and I feared that any additional seeding was futile until the thistles were controlled. I had the farmer who rents my farm ground spray the 15 acres in late June with Widematch, a common wheat herbicide with excellent thistle activity. Then in November I purchased a 14 species blend of native species with tolerance to Milestone, another excellent thistle killer. Hopefully I can get some forbs established through the weeds, and if not I will at least have a 15 acre native grass border to provide a buffer between the farm field and the restoration.

That brings us to today. In total, 145 native prairie species have been seeded, with perhaps 100 seeded in significant amounts. Zone 1 has its original CRP blend of 30-35 species and the density of plants is such that it will be very difficult to establish anything more (remember this area likely got more than a 2X seeding rate to start). Zone 2 filled in pretty well last summer, and is likely to fill in completely this summer, hopefully including much of the gathered seed that was spread a year ago. Zone 3 still looks like hell, but by the end of the fall I could find new perennial prairie seedlings every spot I looked (and I looked at hundreds of spots). And Zone 4 is a big question mark, but it will at least have a diverse grass cover.

CODA

Life is frustrating for all of us because it so rarely matches our expectations. I have certainly been frustrated by the poor job done on the original CRP seeding. Even now after several remedial seedings it is nowhere near my vision for a prairie restoration. However, I must not let the act of looking back come at the expense of doing my best today. I like the Buddhist take on this universal dilemma. To paraphrase: “Suffering is universal and caused by our desire for life to be different than it is; yet there is a path beyond suffering through changing how we think about and act in the world.” I read a book about 20 years ago called “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” which compared Eastern thought to the physics of relativity and quantum mechanics. Two things stand out from my memory of the book. The first is that everything is always interconnected and changing. The second is illustrated by the way chapters were labeled. Each chapter was Chapter 1. We are always beginning again, and what we are doing is always important because each action changes the world. So today I begin again, as I will again tomorrow. We boldly and bravely go out every day to remake the world.

Summer’s End

Hard times are coming. Time is short. Be ready or accept the consequences.

I am not trying to riff on a revival style preacher, but I had the opportunity to spend several days last week on my prairies and there is almost an ominous feel to the countryside. The growing season is not over; hopefully we have a month or more with green, but the landscape is tired. The native grasses are turning various shades of tan and bronze; leaves have damage from diseases, insects and hard weather. Most wildflowers are done blooming, and many have senesced and are disappearing. Goldenrods and asters, the flowers of fall, are still blooming, along with a few sunflowers and gentians, hurrying to develop viable seed. With time short some plants just put their heads into the harness collars and pull for the finish. With some luck, there will still be blooms for 2-3 more weeks and the season won’t slip away too soon.

Some other denizens of the prairie are also feeling the weight of the oncoming hard times. For much of August our hills were covered with blooming stiff sunflowers (Helianthus pauciflorus). It appeared that I would be able to pick many bushels of heads for seed, but the maturing heads become an opportunity for some residents.

I had always assumed that deer were the culprit, fattening up for winter by filling their stomachs with sunflower heads; and that may be true, but then I saw evidence of another, unknown suspect.

Most likely, pocket gophers are storing the heads, or shelling out and storing the seeds, as there are usually mounds nearby, but my friend Ben Lardy suggested Franklin’s ground squirrels. Whoever or whatever is clipping and gathering the seedheads does so without harming the plants, which are still waving in the breeze, headless. Waiting for Ichabod Crane, I guess. In any case, I still hope to gather a substantial amount of stiff sunflower heads, though they aren’t ready yet. We will see what is left in a couple weeks.

This mystery of the sunflower thief is a good example of what draws me to these hills. I am increasingly protective of my time at the prairies and sometimes almost desperate for the opportunity to immerse myself in prairie life. My mortality is like a garment I wear these days, and fall has become very poignant to me. My breathing, and thus my stamina, are touchy. My trach means that I am always a half step from pneumonia. The days I spent at the prairie last week were warm and sunny, but now we are in for several days of cold fall rain reminding me of summer’s loss. But even with the rain I am drawn to the prairie hills. They call me with a gentle song: “Come to us. Abide with us. Join with our warmth and our life. Commune with us and become whole”

My Other Restoration

All the posts in this blog have so far referred to 100 acres in the southwest quarter of my home section that I have planted (and am still planting) as a prairie restoration. I have not yet mentioned that I have also seeded 54 acres in the northeast quarter to a diverse native mixture as well. This post will discuss the seeding, what I hope to accomplish with it and why I have made the decisions that I have made.

The easiest way to discuss this seeding is to refer to the aerial images below, because it tells several stories.

This is a blowup of a 30 year old photo of the quarter showing every acre farmed except the tree claim in the northeast corner. This was always considered the best farmground we had, growing wheat, oats barley, flax, rye, millet and alfalfa while I was growing up (before we became part of the corn belt). Even in very wet years my father would just be patient and all the acres would dry up enough to raise a crop. Over the past twenty five years that has not been true.

This is a map of the CRP planted of the quarter. There is now a linear wetland that starts in the northwest part of the quarter and bisects it as it continues to the southeast. The crosshatching are the acres now considered wetland by the Soil Conservation Service. The wetland then enters a marsh in our farmyard which is at the bottom, right of the picture. Part of this linear wetland has not been farmed for 20 years or so. The waterway hardly flows, as it is almost flat, but it has a perched water table that is near the surface in dry years and hovers several inches above the surface in wet years.

What caused the soil layering that creates the perched water table? A recent advance of the Wisconsin glaciation stopped just west of my farm. As the ice melted a large area of poorly sorted outwash sand and gravel was laid down to the east of the melting glacier, covering almost 200 acres on the west side of my farm. The meltwater also left about 40 acres of better sorted sand and gravel on my northeast quarter as the water flowed southeast towards the Big Sioux River. Layering in these soils is not consistent, but generally there is a layer of silt 2-3 feet deep over a layer of gravel 10-20 feet deep which covers older glacial till, When I was growing up there was never enough excess water percolating down to fill this gravel layer ( in which the water very slowly travels underground southeast to the Big Sioux River). It has often been full the past 20-25 years, causing the linear wetland. About 15 acres that had been excellent farmland 50 years ago is often not farmable.

Though the waterway was obviously developed from glacial water flowing east, there is a divide in the northwest part of the quarter where water now flows back west. As a teenager I had tried to determine exactly where my own “continental” divide occurred, but the grade is so subtle that it was impossible. As glaciers melt there are interesting changes in ground elevation as the ground rebounds as the weight of the ice is removed. Many times I have wished to be able to travel back in time to see the drama and spectacle of those geologic forces.

What does all this have to do with my decision to plant 55 acres back to grass? First, because of the newly created wetland acres I was able to enroll in the continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) at a fair rental rate. I am retiring the 15 acres of wet ground plus about 25 acres of the droughtiest gravel soils, with only about 15 acres of the better crop ground going into CRP. The remaining 100 acres of the quarter are productive soils which will remain as farm ground. Second, as I wrote earlier, there is very likely a slow underground flow beneath the CRP and I consider the CRP a small step towards cleaner water entering the Big Sioux River and thence the Missouri and the Mississippi. Third, the grass habitat will almost finish a grass corridor between the grasslands which occur to my west and the grasslands along the Big Sioux River. I don’t know what species might be helped by this connection, but prairie grouse come to mind. Fourth, though I don’t hunt anymore, the CRP could provide an area for pheasant and deer cover, and an area someone might wish to hunt.

So why aren’t I looking at this as a prairie restoration? The main reason is the shape of the CRP acreage. It is narrow and surrounded by crop ground. Herbicide drift will inevitably affect forb species in this field. The conservation district planted this in the fall of 2017. Though the planting job here was better than the job on my restoration field, I have topdressed parts of it with a seed harvested from a native prairie in Minnesota, adding 15-20 new species to supplement the 20 that were planted earlier.

I am not going to use any of the seed I have gathered on my relict prairies on this field, however, nor any expensive purchased forb species. While I have committed to spending a lot of money on the 100 acre restoration, I feel the need to limit expenses elsewhere; I will go all out on the restoration on the southwest quarter and be a bit more conservative on the northeast quarter.

Finally, some of this will probably return to crop production when the CRP contract ends. I have nine years to evaluate options and put together a plan, but I am likely going to leave a very generous waterway and allow the farmer renting the crop acres at that time to break up some of the better acres of the CRP. The majority of the CRP will likely be fenced and become a pasture, probably joined with the farmplace to the south where a water source will be easy to develop.

Again, what do I wish for my 55 acre CRP seeding that is not quite a prairie restoration? I hope it provides water quality protection, a pathway for sharptail grouse and upland sandpipers and a nice area for deer to bed. I hope to see warm season prairie grasses turning various shades of bronze and gold in the fall. I hope to provide some habitat for a variety of insects. I hope it will provide grazing and allow rotation with my native pastures, allowing better management of the native grass. And I really hope to enjoy walking through it during the time I have left.

Mindfulness

Perhaps the most gratifying aspect of my prairie restoration journey has been the education I have received. I have learned a great deal about my prairies while gathering seed and while trying to understand the native prairies I am trying to model in my restoration. I clearly have a different relationship with those prairies than I did before. The revelation was just how freaking rudimentary my knowledge has been and still is. Creating the restoration has meant that I have looked much more closely at many plant species I thought I knew well, and learned about many species I had never noticed. That process obviously begins with simple identification, but continues with phenology, site fidelity and the plant and insect associates that each species live with.

An example: I have been aware that a penstemon grew in my prairies for a long time, but had never looked closely enough to identify the species or even notice its abundance. Last spring, now with an eye to creating my restoration model, I noticed a profusion of small white-bloomed penstemons across the tops of many of the most xeric hills. The white penstemon (Penstemon albidus) is one which I had never noticed in popular plant guides and which I have yet to find available from native seed purveyors. Pasqueflowers (Anemone patens) were also blooming on the same sites, but with little else having made significant growth, the 8-12” tall blooms stood out, even from a distance.

Then, two weeks later, I noticed a resurgence of penstemon blooms, but now with a hint of lavender or violet (I am a bit color challenged; not color blind, just color clueless). I soon realized I had a second species, slender penstemon (Penstemon gracilis). Both species grew in the same sites. They were usually in close association on the gravel hills with an entire suite of early blooming forbs: fringed puccoon (Lithospermum incisum), milkwort (Polygala verticillata), bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata), yellow sundrops (Calylophus serrulata), a chickweed (probably Cerastium arvense) and yellow flax (Linum sulcatum), none of which I had ever looked closely at or identified before. Added to the early blooming species I did know such as ragwort (Packera plattensis), groundplum milkvetch (Astragalus crassicarpus), prairie violet (Viola pedatifida), prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) and pasqueflower, and the hills were a riot of color from April 25-June 15.

Okay, so to call it a “riot” of color might be exaggerating, but to me it was still eye-opening. These were hills I had walked over for 50 years but had never seen before. Over the past 40 years my work has occupied so much of my time during the late spring and early summer that I had spent little time in my prairies. I would always go out to see the pasqueflowers emerge in late April, and by the time I turned around it seemed to be late July. Seeing the variety of blooms in May on these soil-less hills made me giddy. I have done some reading on Buddhist teachings and the concept of mindfulness has resonated with me. In the late 60’s the phrase you would see was, “Be here, now.” In the movie “Wayne’s World” Garth says to Wayne as he moons over an expensive guitar, “Live in the now, man!” Same concept, different contexts. I had been a really crappy Buddhist, not showing sufficient attention to my surroundings. The number of species that I didn’t know on one gravel hilltop, most not taller than a twelve ounce water bottle, gobsmacked me, as the British say. Even the ubiquity of prairie junegrass (Koelaria macrantha), a species that I thought I knew well, was a surprise. Parasitic plants such as bastard toadflax and downy painted cup (Castilleja sessiflora) were not in my purview, though it seems obvious in retrospect that parasitism is a reasonable strategy on a droughty, infertile soil. Another obvious strategy was investing energy in seed rather than roots. An extensive, deep root system really pays off in drought when you have soil for the roots to explore and exploit. When there is really no soil it is reasonable to live fast, die young and leave a lot of seed to grow in the empty spaces on the thin, gravelly soils.

This brings me back to my penstemons. More so than many plants they grow in patches. Often that occurs with rhizomatous growth, plants investing in clonal growth. However when I pulled plants of both penstemon species I found a shallow, fibrous root system, not rhizomes. The common thread, particularly for the white penstemon, was fidelity to extremely droughty soils. Some areas hardly deserve to be called soil, the soil forming processes have modified the gravelly parent material so little. I think that these penstemons turn spring moisture into a lot of viable seed, seed dispersal be damned. Life is fine if seeds drop right next to the parent plants on to the exposed mineral soil of these sites. The parents aren’t very competitive and may not live much longer anyway. This made me hesitant to gather a large percentage of the seed pods as it might affect the survival of the penstemon patch. Perhaps some of the seeds are dispersed by seed eating birds whose gizzards fail to grind all the seeds. This is all obviously speculative, but I think those two penstemons, again, particularly the white, use the strategy of an annual to thrive on a very tough site.

Beauty on a hilltop

Life is ephemeral

Continuity may not mean that I myself continue

But oh, to wave in a cool wind on a spring day

And build a future for another May

Am I talking about the penstemons or creating a metaphor for an old farm boy? A bit of both perhaps.

When is enough, enough? Part 3

I spent a couple hours yesterday walking around the restoration to spread some grass seed and ponder future management. It’s been a year since the original seeding and the results are coming into better focus. When I evaluated it last fall I felt that bridging in the tank of the drill that did the seeding left 50 acres, or half the field without seed, and only 25-30 acres well seeded (leaving the other 20-25 acres poorly seeded I guess). Further development and perhaps a more objective eye whittles the empty area down to maybe 20-25 acres and raises the better area to 50 acres. Time, and some help from the supplementary seeding that Ben Lardy and I did last fall have provided some encouragement. Still, there is a significant area that doesn’t look good. It is nowhere close to providing any of the ecological services that it has been my goal to provide. How do I make these 25 acres not suck? Therein lies what is becoming an existential dilemma.

To illustrate my concerns I stood on a bare knob and took pictures in all directions. Here is what I saw:

Most of what can be seen are invasive weeds: wormwood sage and marestail; go down the hill and we can add canada thistle, tall waterhemp and a variety of other weed species. Native perennial density varies from one plant per square foot down to one plant per 50 square feet. By any objective measurement this substantial part of the restoration truly does suck. What can be done?

Well, to begin with we have now seeded this area three more times in addition to the first seeding. We pulled a spreader over all of it last November, and then again about the first of May. Since then I (with some help from a couple hard working young women who are helping my wife and I out this summer) have spread supplemental grass and forb seed by hand over most of the area. Every time I think I am done I find myself ready to turn around to buy and gather more seed before I finish the thought. On these gravelly hills I have one more year to augment the seed bank and hopefully add some substance and depth to the restoration. There is still a place at the table, open spots for seedlings to colonize. In the valleys the weeds are thicker and more competitive, but I still hope that there is room there as well for seed spread later this year to have a chance. The fallback position is to start over, and with $500-600 per acre and countless hours of seed gathering invested I am not ready to do that. I also hope to get out there with a sprayer on the ATV to start doing some targeted control, though I know how difficult that will be. One can go crazy trying to control weeds in a situation like this. And finally, I will soon have a neighbor go across this with a mower.

The dream is that I will see a crescendo of seedling establishment building through the entire summer as all the seeds we have spread on the field (perhaps 30-40 seeds/ft2) break dormancy and begin to establish. In the dichotomy of optimists and pessimists I stand firmly holding a glass half full (and am always tempted to say it’s two thirds full). A lifetime of watching the world, however, prompts me to have a Plan C should my optimism be unfounded (Plan B has already been completed), and I am getting close to having plan C decided. In the meantime I will obsessively monitor the seeding and continue to collect seed from my existing prairies. I will end with a couple pictures to illustrate why I am optimistic.

The pictures above show areas that I evaluated as having very poor stands last summer. It is still not a snazzy stand, but along with the weeds are 10-15 species of natives that I seeded, and a reasonable hope that this will look like a full stand next year with the whole panoply of species as crowns expand, rhizomes run and new seedlings emerge. The optimist in me says much of the emptiest area can look like this next year.

I also made some observations on the CRP field I seeded 9 years ago. There’s a real “Rambunctious Garden” thing going on there as the natives I planted try to reach an equilibrium with the weeds and create something new. Then today I took a path where I saw Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis), northern bedstraw (Galium boreale), a spiderwort (Tradescantia sp.) and cudleaf sage (Artemisia ludoviciana), none of which were planted in the field. The anemone, the bedstraw and the sage only had to move 50 feet from nearby prairie, while the spiderwort may have been a “contaminant” in the original seeding. Given enough time and some gentle management and we might see many species move around and find new homes. Who knows what might happen in 50 or 150 years. It is certain that the evolutionary fitness of all the native prairie species has depended upon their abilities to move and establish themselves in new homes, and only our short term focus and short lives limit our ability to envision what can occur.

And so I cling to my hopes. “Enough” has not yet been reached, and I have not yet given up on my goal of a diverse plant environment which will provide benefits for a long time. We have US Fish and Wildlife easements on adjoining ground and the hope is that we could offer some or all of the restoration field for easement consideration in the future. For some reason this reminded me of a line from Douglas Adams’ classic “A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. An alien being becomes immortal through an accident and becomes so bored that he takes on the quest to personally insult every being in the universe in alphabetical order (if you haven’t read the book, you need to). When a killjoy informs him of the impossibility of the quest, even for an immortal being, he simply fixes the naysayer with a steely glare and says, “A man can dream, can’t he?” Well, I’m not sure where that apocryphal example fits in with my restoration blog, but I feel the urge to reply to the naysayer within my own brain, “A man can dream, can’t he?”