Reseeding

Past History

Current Management

2007Activities

Harvest

Seed Processing

Seeding

Seed Testing

Reference Material

Past History

The Rainwater Basin Wetland Management District has been seeding farmed uplands back to native warm season grasses for almost 30 years.  Historically, seeding was done using a grass drill in the months of January, February, and March.  If possible, it was sown on the surface of a light snow covering.  A high degree of success has been achieved with establishing these grasses and nearly all uplands seeded had a dominant stand within 3 to 5 years.  During the first 2 to 3 years, an abundance of annual plants such as foxtail, marestail, and sunflowers dominate newly seeded fields--providing excellent habitat for pheasant, white-tailed deer, rabbits, and bird species that prefer weedy annual plants.  During this establishment phase, the native grasses and forbs develop a deep root systems, but low amounts of foliage.  By the end of the fifth year, the weedy annuals decrease while the planted species become dominant. 

The major species seeded included big bluestem, Indian grass, little bluestem, switchgrass, and sideoats grama. Other native species included western wheatgrass, green needlegrass, and slender wheatgrass.  Seeds were purchased from seed companies and were primarily improved varieties.

A few fields were seeded to mixtures designed to be more attractive to nesting waterfowl.  These were comprised of non-native cool season grasses and legumes such as intermediate wheatgrass, smooth bromegrass, alfalfa, red clover, and yellow/white sweetclover.  With time, these species either declined or increased in dominance--resulting in a poorly competitive plant community that allowed noxious weeds to become established.

During the past 20 years, some upland seedings included small amounts of native forbs; such as round head lespedeza, compass plant, leadplant or purple prairie clover.  High seed costs and the species' slow rate of establishment discouraged extensive seeding.   

Newly acquired wetlands were not seeded, but allowed to re-vegetate from the existing seed bank contained in the soil.  In 2000, we began to experiment with seeding certain wetland species, particularly sedges and wetland grasses. Certain species, especially some of the sedges, do not appear to return on their own and may have been eliminated from the available seed bank.

A few areas acquired by the Service had never been cultivated, but probably experience overgrazing and applications of herbicides.  Most of these sites currently contain an abundance of non-native species, such as Kentucky bluegrass and to a lesser extent smooth bromegrass.  Dominant prairie forbs and grasses, such as leadplant, purple prairie clover, or porcupine grass and native wetland plants, such as western wheatgrass, marsh vetchling, or fog fruit can be found.  

Current Management: High Diversity Seeding (top)

The term high diversity seeding includes harvesting, processing and sowing large numbers of native species in an attempt to return the plant community as close as possible to its pre-cultivation condition. The term restoration has often been used to describe this same process, but restoring a grassland is not as simple as planting a few native plants.  

Our objective is to manage uplands for warm season, grass-dominated (big bluestem in the eastern portion, and little bluestem in the western portion) plant communities with a diverse mix of other cool- and warm-season grasses, sedges, rushes, and broadleaf forbs.  Reference materials (see below) and examination of remnant native prairie tracts and wetlands were used to formulate a "watchlist" of plants. 

During 1997, 1998, and 1999 Prairie-Plains Resource Institute conducted a large scale high diversity seeding on Springer WPA.  The success of that seeding caused our office to expand high diversity seeding throughout the District.

It was determined that the wet meadow plant community was lacking and many wetlands would benefit from seeding of sedges, rushes, and wetland grasses.  Disking of wetland areas was reduced, while burning and grazing was increased to encourage the establishment of native wetland species.  We expect the plant communities to recover from the seed bank in the soil when the hydrology and proper management is restored.  A few select species, such as bur reed, may have been eliminated from the seed bank by the heavy waterfowl grazing pressure the wetlands receive.

2007 Activities (top)

The knowledge and experience gained over the last nine seasons has allowed us to improve our efforts each year.  We relied heavily on the combine for the bulk of our seed again in 2007.  A considerable amount of time in the fall was spent either operating the combine, moving the combine to the next site, or drying and moving seed that was harvested.  However, we were able to hire a few different contractors to move the combine for us this year.  

This year seemed to be one of the best all around upland grass seasons that we have had.  The weather seemed to finally cooperate in the west district and provide fairly consistent precipitation throughout the summer.  The east district was good with the exception of Clay County , which lacked rain until later in the fall.  Atlanta , Peterson, Prairie Dog, Clark , and Smith WPA’s provided the bulk of the seed containing as many as 50 different species at each site.  Cottonwood WPA, Spiedell tract (TNC), Harvard WPA, and Kirwin NWR also contributed bulk individual species.  We continued to use the ATV pulled seed stripper and primarily used it on collection of sedges and other wetland plants, grasses, and native forbs such as deer vetch and Illinois bundle flower which are easily harvested with the stripper.  Kirwin NWR allowed us to use their seed stripper again this year and we were able to keep both strippers busy all year.  The Nature Conservancy used one of the strippers on several occasions this year.  We targeted our hand stripping efforts on species such as compass plant and other native sunflowers, Canada milkvetch and other native legumes, and species not likely to be picked up on our combine sites.  Prairie Plains Resource Institute harvested grass on Springer WPA this season with their own equipment and in return harvested us several forb species.

Four drying bins exist, which allow air to be forced through the seed via a perforated pipe.  The design allows for the dryer to be loaded with a forklift and could be placed in the dump trailer for transport.  They are heavily used, especially early in the season while plants contain more moisture.  A significant amount of time can be saved with this by not having to load and unload seed, spread it on the floor, stir it daily, etc.  All were used and seemed to remain in good working order.  Seed we carried over into 2007 was stored at Cottonwood WPA and were used in this year's seed mixes.  We moved the seed storage structure from McMurtrey to Cottonwood to increase Cottonwood's storage facility.  We generally try not to hold seed over longer than two to three years.

Harvest (top)

Harvest began in earnest in July 2007.  We started harvesting sedges and rushes early with the seed stripper.  The seed stripper was also used on western wheatgrass, sideoats grama, coreopsis, Indiangrass, big bluestem, little bluestem, deer vetch, and Illinois bundle flower.  The staff continued to hand strip seed throughout the season as species matured.  We gained access to some excellent sites this season.   Kirwin NWR had excellent amounts of sideoats grama and a diverse mixture of forbs, but did not show near the amount of western wheatgrass as expected.  A few new cemeteries and road ditches were located and harvested from this year (with landowner's permission).  

The old reliable spots on the WPAs produced again this year.  In particular Atlanta WPA had an abundance of  upland grasses, leadplant and round headed bushclover; Eckhardt WPA was loaded with white prairie clover and leadplant; Smith WPA had an array of natives again in good abundance; Harvard WPA had abundant purple and white prairie clovers along with compass plant; and Springer WPA was our go-to spot for rosinweed and other native sunflowers.  Some of our recent single species seedings of 1/4 acre or less and recent high diversity seedings produced black-eyed Susan, upright prairie coneflower, and others in harvestable quantities.  Many of our WPAs that were recently prescribed burned and inter-seeded are also starting to produce harvestable supplies.   

The majority of the harvest was done with the combine.  The combine ran without any major problems this season, other than normal general maintenance.  The stripper head continues to hold up well.  It was used on coreopsis, western wheatgrass, Virginia wildrye and sedges starting in late August and early September.  We then moved on to the forb patches and warm season grasses, followed by a late push of warm season plants at Kirwin NWR.   

The 2007 growing season had a wet and cool spring followed by an above average summer rainfall which tailed off into a dry fall.  This cool and wet spring resulted in a good stand of Canada wildrye on Heron, Brauning, and Cottonwood WPAs and some good stands of western wheatgrass, Virginia wildrye, and coreopsis.  The warm season species matured early this year and carried themselves well into fall.  Much of this harvest occurred in September and October.  The leadplant was ready and most of the warm season grasses by this time.  The majority of the combine harvest sites were in the west district this year with the exception of Smith WPA, which is where most of the leadplant and other forbs are harvested.  We try to locate harvest sites that are close together if at all possible to reduce road hours and increase harvest hours with the combine.  It has not been possible to load the combine on our tractor/trailer in 2007, so we rented one enabling us to make moving the combine from the east district to the west district more efficiently. 

Following is a table showing harvest sites and their major species component.  The table includes harvesting by hand, seed stripping, and combining on our larger areas.  A number of ditches, cemeteries, and WPAs are not included in the table due to the small quantities.

Site locations where the majority of the seed came from.

Seed Processing (top)

Processing is required to some extent for all seeds. After harvest, the seeds must be dried. The seeds are usually spread out on cement floors and allowing them to air dry for a few days. Drying was speeded up by using two forced-air seed dryers mentioned earlier.

The hammer mill was used to break apart species that had large amounts of stems or seedheads needing to be broken apart.  No grass species were run through the mill.

The bulk of the mixing was completed the week of November 21.  We placed the large volume species in piles surrounding the center of the floor and placed the smaller lots around the mixing area.  We made one major mix on the floor and stirred in all of the grasses and forbs.  We measured out the smaller lots containing mostly forbs for some other mixes.  Seeds from various species are shared and traded with the Nature Conservancy and Prairie Plains Institute.

We identified planned sites and approximate acres and custom mixed a certain amount of pounds for each of these sites.  We included species, which were primarily eastern species for the eastern sites and increase species, such as little bluestem and side oats grama, for the western sites.  Once we had all of these completed, we put a general mix together that would work for any mixed or tall grass site.  This year, we completed the bulk of the mixing in one full day. A list of species in various mixes was developed.

A significant amount of bulk seed remained after the mixes were done. 

Seeding (top)

The Vicon spreader continues to be our choice for seeding.  The drills we had been using broadcast the seed onto the surface through tubes.  It uses a PTO driven oscillating arm to spread the seed and distributes the seed better.  The drill would drop many “clumps” of seed, so you had to increase the rate to compensate.  The drill also resulted in grasses establishing in rows.  The tractor can be operated at a much higher speed with the Vicon.  The Vicon spreader is nearly impossible to plug up, is much, much easier to transport, and requires almost no maintenance compared to the heavy maintenance of the drills.  The Vicon spreader can also be operated anytime the tractor can be driven while the drills plugged at the first hint of mud.  After some figuring, we could make the same amount of seed go much further and could complete this seeding in about 1/3 of the time it would take to drill.  The spreader is set on 18 for the application setting.  We estimate that we seed about 12-14 bulk pounds per acre or about 5 to 7 PLS (pounds of live seed)/acre.

In 2000/2001, we calculated that we seeded at about 5 pounds PLS per acre or somewhere near the 2 million seeds per acre that Larry Hanson at Detroit Lakes WMD had suggested.  

The two main drawbacks with the Vicon spreader are not being able to see where you have seeded and the impact of the wind.  Seeding over the snow improves visibility.  Seeding in two directions reduces the chance of leaving a bare patch.  

December 2007 to February 2008 actual seedings.

2006/2007 Seed provided to WPA Cooperative Agreement members.

 Seed Testing (top)

Reference Material

by Bill Whitney Published in Prairie Plains Journal #13 pp. 39-56.

The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook for Prairies Savannahs, and Woodlands by Steven Packard and Cornelia Mutel

The Prairie by J.E. Weaver and T.J. Fitzpatrick, Ecological Monographs, Volume 4, pages 109-295 (1934). Reprinted in 1980 by Prairie Plains Resource Institute. Aurora, NE.

North American Priarie by J.E. Weaver. Johnsen Publishing Company. Lincoln, NE.

Native Vegetation of Nebraska by J. E. Weaver. University of Nebraska Press. 1965

Flora of the Great Plains, ed. T. M. Barkley et. Al. (Great Plains Flora Association). University Press of Kansas, 1986.

Atlas of the Flora of the Great Plains, ed. William Barker et. al. (Great Plains Flora Association). Iowa State University Press. 1977.

A Garden of Wildflowers. Kansas Wildflower Society. 1992

Last updated: September 23, 2008

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