Tag: <span>Native Prairie</span>

Speculations on Natural History

Fire, Part 3

After the success of my accidental burn in 2017 I was interested in accomplishing a well-planned controlled burn on a 20 acre prairie a half mile north of the restoration site in the spring of 2018. This prairie had been used as a pasture till the 1960’s, hayed intermittently for another decade, and then not used in any way for the past 40 years. It was a poster child for the need to manage prairies to save them, covered by thick stands of Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) and smooth brome (Bromus inermis). I had gathered some seed on this piece in the fall of 2017 and found native plant diversity and density to be disappointing, except on the droughtiest hilltops. There was no longer a fence to allow grazing and it is a very awkward piece to hay; the only reasonable choice for management seemed to be a lighted match.

I contracted with Ben Lardy, a Pheasants Forever employee who has been working with me throughout the process, to create a burn plan, and to gather and manage a crew to do the burn. With help from Pete Bauman, the range extension specialist for South Dakota State University (and an ex Nature Conservancy employee who had been part of many burns), Ben came up with a good plan that I approved. About May 20 the availability of the crew intersected with a perfect day and sufficient cool season grass growth to create a wonderful burn. Literally every square foot burned right to the ground during the well controlled fire. We would have a chance to see what could be accomplished.

A map of Ben’s burn plan. Black smudges are back burns. (Photo by Ben Lardy)
As it all winds down (Photo by Ben Lardy).
Ten days after the burn

The results can be evaluated over the two primary environments: xeric hills mostly covered by Kentucky bluegrass and mesic valleys with a thick stand of brome and Canadian thistles (Cirsium canadense).

The results on the hills were dramatic. The perfect conditions for the burn caught the Kentucky bluegrass about to head and did some serious damage to it. The native warm season grasses which were there had the whole summer to grow before the cool weather of the fall allowed vigorous bluegrass growth. The blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), released from bondage, made spectacular growth, pushing out many two inch long seedheads. I’m assuming that some of those seeds fell into openings created by the fire which will allow new seedling establishment. Apart from the new seedlings, the blue grama will undoubtedly expand because of crown and root reserves built with the summer’s carbohydrates.

Off the crest of the hills in the less xeric conditions many bunches of prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) used the opportunity to expand. I had hardly noticed dropseed in the past, but thick clumps of four foot tall seedheads and the attendant vegetative growth dotted the hillsides. There was enough seed that I felt free to gather a couple pounds, while still leaving plenty to drop.

A third warm season grass that will see long term benefits is prairie sandreed (Calamovilfa longifolia). I had noticed one large patch on a hillside for many years, obvious as a pale green area in the summer and a rusty colored circle after maturity. After the burn I saw many additional mini-patches expanding all over the hills, as rhizomatous growth turned what might have been individual plants into sizable patches. Seeds waved 5-6 feet in the air.

Ben Lardy with a very tall sandreed seedhead, almost 7′ tall

What was most dramatic, though were the gardens of wildflowers. Not only were there expanses of the usual suspects such as leadplant (Amorpha canescens), black samson (Echinacea angustifolia), dotted gayfeather (Liatris punctata) and stiff sunflower (Helianthus pauciflorus), but also smaller patches of silky aster (Symphyotricum sericeum), heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides), scarlet gaura (Gaura coccinea), whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) and hairy goldaster (Heterotheca villosa). The poor pictures I have posted can only hint at what I saw. It was glorious.

A gaggle of gayfeathers

Unfortunately I can’t say saw similar results on the 4-5 acres of mesic soils dominated by brome. Forty years with no harvesting had allowed the brome to eliminate competition. In this area, a broad saddle between two ridges, brome and its unholy partner, Canada thistle, grew back as thick as they had been before the fire. On a ring around the top of the saddle, where the brome grades into the Kentucky bluegrass, clumps of dropseed, big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) were able to expand, and hopefully continue to expand in 2019. Below is a picture of a large area of leadplant trying to work its way downhill into the brome.

Notably, one mesic forb did make dramatic growth, American licorice (Glychyrrhiza lepidota). There had always been a couple areas near the wet draw that bisects the site, but the short period of release from brome competition engendered racehorse rhizomatous growth. The rhizomes seemed to have grown 15 feet up the hill, though much of that was probably bud release on already existing rhizomes. Last fall when I was collecting seed it was quick work filling a five gallon bucket which turned into a pound of seed after shelling. If the snow had not been so deep this winter it would have been fun to get back there on a nice mid-winter day to fill a pail or two. Below is a view of what is now an acre of licorice.

If things go well this fall, I will have a neighbor, Andrew Butler, build a high tensile electric fence around the prairie and graze it in rotation with a neighboring pasture soon. My wife’s grazing project (She grazes 80-85 cows on a 340 acre block of native grass divided into 8 paddocks) has shown that you can decimate brome with repeated fall grazing, and hopefully Andrew and I can finesse the movement of his cattle to allow warm season grasses to recolonize the brome.

One negative result of the burn was the discovery of several patches of yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) aka butter and eggs. I had never noticed toadflax on this prairie, but it was also released by the removal of cool season grass competition. I did some herbicidal control to keep the patches from spreading, but need to develop a plan for 2019. Toadflax is evil shit, and I may have to consider full chemical warfare to eliminate the patches, though I plan to seek advice before making a decision.

There is a third environment I have not yet mentioned, a linear wetland that bisects the prairie, and the edge of the slough it drains into. Though much of this had standing water when burned, the thick cover (mostly cattails) burned almost to water level. Obviously, a fire doesn’t have the same effect in this wet environment, but a variety of facultative wetland forbs grew along the edges and worked their way into the mass of cattails. I have limited need of wetland seed for my restoration, so I spent only a small amount of time gathering seed there, mostly swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum). However, I do hope to spend more time there this summer, as my knowledge of wetland plants is limited and I would like to learn more.

Joe pye weed hanging out with some friends

Finally, I think it relevant to mention what I didn’t see after the fire. I didn’t see prairie junegrass (Koelaria macrantha) increase; I didn’t see pasqueflower (Anemone patens) increase (though it was interesting to see plants blooming in June after the fire). I didn’t find any groundplum milkvetch (Astragalus crassicarpus), prairie violets (Viola pedatifida) or puccoon (Lithospermum canescens). As might be expected from a late spring fire, I failed to help the cool season natives. This was a very different result from my accidental fire in early April the year before. Some of those cool season natives might be missing; this prairie is not as diverse as the neighboring prairies. But everything has a cost, and a failure to help the cool season natives was the fee I paid to attain the other benefits. This was probably the best that I could expect from a single fire event. Now I look forward to managing the 20 acres with grazing and look forward very eagerly to what will grow in 2019.

Speculations on Natural History

The Neighborhood

A big impetus for the prairie restoration, as I’ve discussed before, was the discovery of the Dakota skipper butterfly (Hesperae dacotae), a federally threatened species, on my adjoining native prairie. I hope to expand potential skipper habitat, as well as provide a buffer between the skipper habitat and farmed acres. This will double the grassland on this part of my farm to 200 acres. What makes this more interesting is the surrounding neighborhood. The reason for the native prairies on my farm is a terminal moraine, the dump of piled up materials left by a glacial advance, just to the west of my land. This strip of land runs north and south for about twenty miles, generally a couple miles wide, and is almost all in native grass. Though my farm is not actually on the moraine, it is in an area of glacial outwash, sand and gravel laid down by the melting glacier. The west half of my farm, and the west half of the restoration field, is in this area of outwash. While some of this is farmed, much is in grass, as shown in the map below.

My farm is in the northeast corner, with the restoration field highlighted

In the nine square miles shown, almost 6000 acres, there is about 3500 acres of grass, 1500 acres of farmground and 1000 acres of water. Most of the grass is native pasture though there are about 800 acres of public land in low diversity prairie restorations. Extend this landscape north and south and you end up with a fair amount of grass. My restoration field is highlighted in the upper right.

A little aside I may elaborate on in a future post: on the west side of the map you can see the east edge of a large lake. When I was growing up the lake was a salt lake (it is the final home of the water in a drainage area with no outlet). In the drought of 1974-1976, and again in 1988 it was almost completely dry, a muddy, foul smelling salt flat. It was surrounded by several thousand acres of salty grassland, much of it owned by the state as a game production area. The grass is all underwater now as the extremely wet years of the 1990’s filled the basin. 3000-5000 acres of shallow salty water which held no fish is now a freshwater lake of 15000-20000 acres up to thirty feet deep and a magnet for fishermen from far and wide. It blows my mind, but for now I will close off this tangent and return to the main topic.

Connectivity is a buzzword of the conservation community of late, the physical connection of habitats which allows the movement of species across landscapes. My neighborhood has excellent, though not perfect connectivity. In looking at Google Earth one day I estimated that because of the moraine there was about a 25 mile stretch of connected grass (with one or two very small gaps) connecting perhaps 25,000 acres of grass in total. I wonder about the significance of this to the long term value of my restoration. To put it another way, is my project more worthwhile because of the surrounding neighborhood? Much of the grass in the area is overgrazed pasture, some has had herbicides applied to rein in the weeds that are the inevitable result of that overgrazing. I would like to assess the neighborhood to ponder its relationship to my restoration, though I obviously can’t trespass over all of it (I’m not above trespassing on some of it to look around).

One indicator is the presence of the Dakota skippers. Individual skippers have a limited range, reputedly reluctant or unable to travel over a half mile. There is obviously a large enough block of grass which has sufficient nectar and larval food sources in the area to sustain a small population. And in my immediate vicinity I know there is a connected block of at least 1000 acres that shows no history of significant herbicide history. If I can go to the border of the pasture and see black samson (Echinacea angustifolia) heads I am confident there are other wildflowers.

There are also both sharptail grouse and prairie chickens in the neighborhood. I regularly kick up sharpies on my prairies and have seen a covey of chickens a couple miles south of my land. Prairie grouse need a landscape of several thousand acres of grass and we have that. I don’t know if there is a lek nearby or if the grouse are part of a population from a much larger area of grass a few miles to the east. It certainly would be fun to find a lek in my immediate area.

Other grassland birds such as bobolinks, upland sandpipers, grasshopper sparrows and marbled godwits are reasonably common in the neighborhood. One of the joys of late spring is listening to the sound of upland sandpiper flights as they establish territories and try to impress potential mates. I am not skilled enough at bird identification to know whether there might be more unusual birds such as a Baird’s sparrow or a Sprague’s pipit, birds of similar habitat mostly found farther north and west. I would like to learn of other biotic indicators to monitor, perhaps entomological ones.

Until a few years ago I considered almost all the grass in my neighborhood as very “safe” from conversion to farming. Any area that made sense as farmground was already farmed. Actually, there is probably more grass now than when I was a kid, and more grass then, than right after the turn of the century. Just as the poor farm fields of the Appalachians have gone back to trees, many small farm fields broke out over 100 years ago were allowed to go back to grass. But a few years ago a 240 acre piece near my farm was bought by the local owner of a sizable gravel business, just to the southwest of my restoration. I assume that no mineable gravel was found, so the owner decided to improve the value of his investment by breaking some of the grass. This was not a fancy bit of prairie; I am pretty sure the 60-80 acres he broke out the first year were farmed at one time. Then the next year another sizable chunk of the farm was worked up right over steeply sloping hills I am confident were native grass. It was appalling. Even the hard core farming neighbors thought it a bit unethical.

Very little crop has come off this land since it was broke, though we have had decent rainfall the past two years. In a drought most of the farm will raise nothing. During heavy rainfall events it will wash like a bastard. At some point in the future the land will likely get planted back to grass after a great deal of erosion and loss of organic matter. The hubris is breathtaking. This instructive little example shows the purpose of US Fish and Wildlife grassland easements. In the past I had considered easements on unfarmable land a waste of taxpayer resources. I was wrong.

While much of the grass in the area is under easement, I hope others consider that path. The neighbors I have talked to invariably think that farming the steep, rocky hills is foolhardy, but many are very uncomfortable with the idea of a perpetual easement. Though I have been willing to place my grass under easement, I understand their concern. Forever is a long time. In an ironic twist I think the perpetual easement program is aided greatly by our inherent short term focus. Wave some money in front of our faces and “perpetual” becomes a less scary term.

There was a point to this digression. If my restoration is effective in providing a helpful addition to the prairie landscape in my neighborhood I am planning to offer it for a perpetual easement, and have an indication that it will be accepted. I have 100 acres of adjoining prairie in the program, and two of the nearest neighbors have another 500. There will be a great deal of satisfaction in expanding the prairie habitat in the neighborhood, and if the government will wave some money in front of my face, I will gladly take the money and run. I can use the exercise.

Looking at pasqueflowers on Easter Sunday

more about connectivity and Dakota Skipper
Speculations on Natural History

Prairie Dreams

I am a 63 year old businessman/farmer who decided to create a 100 acre prairie restoration in 2017. It was seeded last year, and has prompted a great deal of reflection and conversation which has culminated in the decision to start a blog to document the process and results, and to reflect on many things related to the restoration, and to prairies and the natural world. I do this primarily as an exercise to clarify my own thoughts and feelings, but if it is of interest to anyone I welcome your own thoughts, observations and ideas. And so we begin.

Prairie Dreams

When I was a teenager out picking rock or digging summer fallow there was a lot of time to daydream. A teenager lives so deep inside his own head that he needs a ladder to enter the world. Then, put that teenager in a job that takes no thought or intention and leave him alone for hours. Flights of fancy swirl and cycle, multiple iterations of whatever scenario has gotten stuck in his mind circle till an appropriate ending appears, and the successful/heroic/tragic scenario is perfect.

One of those recurring fantasies I had was imagining what heaven would be like. I must have had full confidence in my personal sanctity as it was obvious to me that heaven was my eventual destination. And to my 15 year old self, heaven would manifest itself in whatever form I wished, so the daydreaming task was to decide what manifestation best satisfied my desires. There were different answers on different days, but the one I remember the best was to be wandering the pre-European settlement prairie. There was nothing but five foot tall big bluestem to the horizon. I still can see the image of myself in a sea of grass.

Now I wonder if that memory has risen from my subconscious to inform my conscious brain’s desire to do a prairie restoration. I hadn’t remembered that daydream until recently, but I don’t think a memory or desire has to be conscious to drive thoughts and decisions. Our brains all have multiple drivers working simultaneously.

However, we still need to create a conscious narrative as well, if only to tell our friends and family. My younger daughter, Diane had surveyed and characterized prairies in northeast South Dakota for an MS thesis project, with special emphasis on prairies with a record of harboring Dakota skipper (Hesperae dacotae) butterflies. Though my land was outside of her study area I had a friend, Dennis Skadsen, scout my prairies and he found a Dakota skipper butterfly. The Dakota skipper has recently been listed as a threatened species, so I was thrilled. Restoring a prairie adjacent to one harboring a threatened prairie species might provide an extension of habitat that would allow a larger, more stable population to develop. Though no skippers have ever been found in a restored prairie, I doubt the sampling population of restored prairies next to skipper occupied habitat is very large, and a man can dream. And even if they cannot be tempted to feed on the black samson (Echinacea angustifolia) that I plant, there will at least be a buffer created between the occupied habitat and farmed ground. Few insecticides are used in my area, but infestations of grasshoppers, soybean aphids and other crop pests occur occasionally and a buffer from potential insecticide drift seems prudent.

To extend the reasoning, I am close to retirement with health problems related to collateral damage from cancer treatment. Increasing retirement income to supplement Social Security is a goal. The restoration is occurring on poor farm ground with below average rental income. I was able to enroll the field in the continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) signup, primarily as pollinator habitat, at a rental rate above what I was receiving for it as farm ground. The CRP program also provides cost share for seeding, providing some help towards the substantial cost.

If I haven’t tied this up in a tight enough package there is a fourth benefit to me from the project. As I slow down in the career that I have been working at for almost 40 years I need something new to be moving towards. I have spent my entire life working outside. To retire to an east chair sounds more like the third circle of Hell in Dante’s “Inferno” than a goal to aspire to. Every week during the growing season for 38 years I have visited 25 farmer clients who are also some of my best friends. I need to have a chance to continue to interact with interesting people, talking about important things. I am rich in having a great many people to consult with on the restoration project; people I can ask questions of and hopefully brag to with pictures of my successes in its development. This will be a wonderful excuse to visit with them.

So the plan brings forth the subconscious memory of the wandering mind of a fifteen year old boy. It develops from the experiences chasing cattle, fixing fence and making hay in our prairies while growing up. The subconscious melds with the conscious desire to create a project to share with my daughter, something to look forward to working in and enjoying with her. It draws in the desire to support a threatened species and to still be a vital, contributing member of the human race. And I am doing it in such a way that it will support my and my wife’s retirement financially as well as spiritually. Art and commerce, science and industry, yin and yang. The circle may not be complete, but it begs the question, “How can I not do this?”

So I did. And I still am.

And this blog will follow the story.