Through the winter I have spent a lot of time trying to decide how much more seed I am going to try to spread on my prairie restoration. Here’s the history: The original seeding was done last June. As I’ve written about earlier, it soon became evident that the seed had bridged in the drill, and that perhaps half the seeding had no seed. About fifty acres would be nothing but weeds unless I reseeded.

Last fall, then, we spread seed over about 75 acres, only leaving the best 25 acres unseeded. Our process would have seemed haphazard to an observer. We would start with a purchased base mix, primarily grasses, different mixes for xeric, dry mesic and wet mesic sites, and then would blend in gathered seed, primarily forbs, from about forty different containers. Our choices of gathered seed would depend upon the soils to be seeded by the next hopper of seed. There were several tubs of both mesic and xeric forb mixtures, several pounds of black samson (Echinacea angustifolia), several bags of leadplant (Amorpha canescens), perhaps five pounds; smaller containers (2-4 gallons each) of 10-15 other forbs and then smaller and smaller containers of another 15-20 species. This last grouping included several bags of seed of species I purchased. In total there were about 75 species that had been gathered (though many in small amounts) and when added to what I had bought and the seed which had been seeded in June there were about 130 species. Most of the restoration had been seeded twice, and parts three times. I had spent over $40000 and invested perhaps 200 hours gathering seed. Why do I feel I have not done enough?

To be honest, part of this is just normal angst. I have spent a great deal of time and a great deal of capital, both financial and emotional, and so far I have little to show for it. None of the seed had gone through a stratification, so dormancy has only been overcome this winter. The mantra on all native seedings is “patience, patience, patience”. If I stop obsessing and go out there next summer I will be rewarded with a glorious vista of wildflowers. Right?

The trouble is that I know too much. I know the weaknesses and the failings of both the planning and the execution. Here are some of my concerns.

First, in order for the seeding plan to be approved, and for me to e eligible for yearly CRP payments, I needed to have an approved seeding plan. This was different for the pollinator habitat than for the wetland restoration (CP 23, for anyone who is interested). Through many iterations of seeding plans we tried to come up with some that 1) Fulfilled the requirements, 2) Were available from a local seedhouse at a reasonable price and 3) Didn’t make me gag when I imagined what the seeding would look like in 4-5 years.

That is not as easy as it sounds. Many of the cheaper, easier to establish species, such as yellow coneflower (Ratibida columnifera) or hoary vervain (Verbena stricta) which are used in pollinator seedings remind me of overgrazed pastures. Others such as Maximillian sunflower (Helianthus maximillianii) and wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) aren’t that common in my neighborhood. Still, price and availability means they were significant contributors to the seed mixes.

Many of the species I wanted to emphasize were very expensive: black samson, dotted gayfeather (Liatris punctate), northern bedstraw (Galium boreale) and buffalobean milkvetch (Astragalus crassicarpus) for example. Some, such as wood lily (Lilium philadelphicum), prairie larkspur (Delphinium virescens) and breadroot scurfpea (Pediomelum esculentum) were only available in tiny seed packets. And some, such as silverleaf scurfpea (Pediomelum argophyllum), slender milkvetch (Astragalus flexuosus) and hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens) were completely unavailable. Gathering these and many additional species was the only path forward, but the seed for the “official seeding” needed to bought as if nothing was to be added. Though my gathered seed was representative of the local prairie remnants and exquisitely adapted to the crappy soils and weather of my home farm they would not qualify to go into the official seeding. I was stuck planting a fair amount of forbs that I did not feel were appropriate to or representative of prairies in my area.

But I have gathered a great deal of local seed the past two years. I have obsessively watched which hills have the slender milkvetch and which have more wild onion (Allium stellatum), or the valley where prairie larkspur grow. Twenty acres of my native prairie were burned last spring, partly to enhance seed production for gathering. I have not been able to gather everything that I wanted, and certainly not in the quantities I desired, but I feel I have done well. And if some of what I bought isn’t well adapted, I comfort myself with the thought that there will be other plants to replace the laggards.

Second, as I have mentioned (whined about) earlier, half of the planting was not planted the first go-round. Most of the area that was well seeded was on a level, mesic area near the township road. The rest, including all the gravelly hills had seed spread last fall with an old pull type broadcast seeded pulled by an ATV. Even though most of the field was seeded twice, there is very little redundancy. In addition, the vagaries of weather and human frailty mean there were predictable skips last fall. Building redundancy into almost any system is both inefficient and comforting. You might say that I was efficient but I am not comforted.

My final concern is with the mixing of the seed. The biggest seeds are several hundred times as heavy as the smallest. Though we worked diligently to blend our mixes, the different sizes and shapes of the seeds we spread inevitably mean there was a sorting process as we bounced up and down the field. As we accept a lack of uniformity in a native stand I will accept a lack of uniformity in my seeding.

If this project is ultimately “all about me” as I believe it inevitably is, the question becomes: What will make me feel I have done the best that I can? What will comfort me with the thought that I have done all that I can reasonably do to create a viable restoration? I started a process to evaluate that question by going back over my purchased seed tags and my seed gathering notes to decide what species I felt short of. The concept is the same as triage: 1) Species I feel I have seeded in sufficient quantities 2) Species that are unavailable or frighteningly expensive, and 3) Species which I believe are under-represented, which I can afford and which come from a source near enough geographically to feel they have a chance to succeed. Another metaphor is that I am Goldilocks – you know the rest.

Of course, gathered seed is always welcome, and I hope to have a good year to gather prodigious amounts of locally adapted seed. I have a couple friends who are interested in the project and will probably hire some summer help who can supplement my efforts.

A short aside is that after years of hearing that only local seed should be used, I have now read a couple opinions that providing genetic diversity is a reasonable response to the changing climate. In my case that source might be as close as the neighborhood where I live, which is 800 feet lower in elevation than my restoration, and tends to more mesic soils. I have a couple small prairies where I can pick some seed from 10-20 species of interest and provide some diversity.

One could also say that I have already provided some of that diversity in my purchased seed, though I may be grasping at straws to feel better about the seed I have already bought. In any case, I will not be able to gather everything I want, and so I return to the point three paragraphs back: purchasing species which are under-represented and not frighteningly expensive

After perusing various seed sellers on the internet and visiting with my contact at Milborn Seeds in Brookings, South Dakota, I have come up with a list of about 20 species and have put together something like a business case for a seeding plan. My resources in money, time and energy are limited, as they always are, and I am trying to get the most bang for the buck in all three categories. In the end I will purchase small to moderate amounts of 10-15 species, try to keep the cost around $2500-3000, and hopefully spread this spring early enough to have a short stratification period, I have a good ATV with a new, small mounted spreader, and I can go around and through small amounts of snow. A 100 acre field looks like a continental expanse when working with such a small rig, but I’m not going to worry about covering every acre. I deeply believe in trying to create redundancy in the plans for any business project, and spreading more seed this spring will be a step in the right direction. Much of the seed I am spreading will probably be wasted because of its falling where existing plants are growing, but that is inevitable and to be expected. To believe that you can plan and execute a plan perfectly with no inefficiency is hubris and a path to disappointment. Slow establishment of my seeding means there will be more weed competition than I would like the next couple years. Even with two mowings last year I know plenty of weed seeds matured. Yet the soil is basically open, ready for colonization, and I humbly hope to do some good this spring. The next post will continue the story.