Purple prairie clover in reseeded grassland
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.
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.
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
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
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
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,
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
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.
SITE
LOCATION |
SPECIES (major components, may have additional native species unlisted) |
|
Leadplant, Round-headed Bushclover, Indian Grass, Big bluestem, Little bluestem, other misc. forbs |
|
|
Eckhardt WPA |
Leadplant, Wild Rose, White and Purple Prairie Clover |
Hannon WPA |
|
|
Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Switchgrass, Indian Grass, |
Harvard WPA |
Purple Prairie Clover, White Prairie Clover, Compass Plant, Big bluestem, Little bluestem, Switch grass |
Kirwin NWR |
Side Oats Grama, |
|
Black-eyed Susan |
Prairie Dog WPA |
Little Bluestem |
Smith WPA |
Porcupine Grass |
Smith WPA Deep Well WMA |
misc. forb mix from PPRI. |
Springer WPA |
Canada Wildrye, Big Bluestem,Blue sage, Rosinweed, Stiff sunflower, Maximillian sunflower, 50 plus species forb mix |
TNC |
Forb species, Big bluestem, Little bluestem |
Other Areas |
Misc.grasses and forbs |
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 significant amount of bulk seed remained after the mixes were done.
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.
UNIT |
DATE |
ACRES |
COMMENTS |
Funk WPA (dikes) |
12/18/07 |
5 dike |
Dike mix |
Funk WPA (Peterson) |
12/18/07 |
35 upland |
Interseeded High diversity mix |
Frerichs WPA |
1/09/08 |
3 upland |
High diverse mix |
Johnson WPA |
1/10/08 |
26 upland |
High diversity mix |
Other WPA’s (projected) |
2/07- 6/07 |
150 upland |
Interseed during burning/ grazing |
Peterson WPA (projected) |
2/07-3/07 |
10 upland |
Moist soil upland grasses |
2006/2007 Seed provided to WPA Cooperative Agreement members.
UNIT |
ESTIMATE
OF BULK LBS OF SEED @ 35 lbs per/bag |
SPECIES |
|
Ducks Unlimited |
170 bags/5950 lbs |
90+ species upland mix |
|
Kirwin NWR |
Bulk pile/ 6000 lbs |
90+ species mix, |
|
LaCreek NWR |
30 bags/1050 lbs |
Cool season species mix |
|
TOTAL |
13,000 lbs |
|
Ecological Restoration of High-diversity Prairie PPRI’s Basic Guide
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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