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.