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.