Strategies for Stewards: from woods to prairies

As there was no sensible way to alphabetize these, this index is arranged by putting what we thought were the most interesting and recent posts at the top.

What is a Grade A Woodland?

Blunt Answers to Nine Questions about Saving Oak Woodlands

Discovering Oak Woodlands: History and Theory

Why-fire-is-needed

Combating Aggressive Woodland Sunflowers

Hypotheses or Myths?

Oak Woodland Restoration - Peer reviewed paper on a first step toward Success

Study and Plan for the Restoration-and-recovery of Moraine Hills Woodlands

Evaluation and Classification of savanna-woodland-and-barrens-natural areas

Plants of Woodlands: update-of Dr. Mead's-list-of-plants

A rare plant of woodlands and savannas: blazing-star-stories

Wisconsin-discovery-may-raise-standards.

How-to-restore-spring-flora-of-oak-woods

Woodland Sunflower: Savior or Threat?

The Unexpected 1908 Discovery of Somme Woods

Plant Refugees

Oak Animals and Fire

Re-discovering-composition-of-oak Woodlands 2015

What-trees-should-we-cut?

Saturday, December 6, 2025

Index of Posts on Nature Preserves

Braidwood Sands

A tour by Floyd Catchpool

Goose Lake Prairie

Goose Lake Needs Us March 2020

Grant Creek Prairie

A Fine Prairie with a Big Problem July 2025

Illinois Beach

Biodiversity Discoveries in the Dunes

Bonfires Along Trail Raise Questions

Conservation of a Rare Turtle

Hard-hitting Headfire - captured by video

Giant Bonfire of Dead Pines

New Volunteer Strike Force

Reports: July 2023

Skinner's False Foxglove and Sweet Clover

Summer Burn

Kishwaukee Fen

Counting a Rare Arrow-grass

Controlled burn March 2022

Kick Off September 2021

Langham Island (a part of Kankakee River Nature Preserve)

Finding Another Lost Rare Plant

Unexpected News of Rapid Gratification

Survivor - Langham Island

Moraine Hills Oak Woodland

2025 restoration and recovery

Morton Grove Prairie

Badly Degraded by Brush

Bonfire Palooza Raises Questions

Nachusa Grasslands

What Would Bison Do?

Fun People and Ornery Bison

Oakwood Hills Fen

Cleaning Up the Edge

Palatine Prairie

Palatine Prairie Needs Somebody

Pilcher Park Woodlands

A New Steward Tells What Worked

Plank Road Prairies

Triumphs, Tragedies, and Fire April 2018

Revis Spring Hill Prairie

A Celebration of Revis Spring Hill Prairie

Shaw Woods and Prairie (Skokie River Nature Preserve)

What we Saw ... and what we Did.

Burn at Shaw: March 21, 2022

Community building November 2021

Kick Off September 2021

Somme Prairie

Questions, Answers, Maps, and Science

6:02 AM - A Cool Walk on a Hot Day

Honeybee Hives Threaten Rare Pollinators

Pollinator Victory

Somme Prairie Grove

Fire, Oaks, and December 2024 Update

Thoughts, Illustrated

Wet-mesic Prairie - Doomed? Or time of Rebirth?

Receives Nature Preserve Status

Myth and Miracle Coming True

Breeding Bird Revival After Habitat Restoration April 2018

Native Shrub Thickets

The Somme Prairie Grove Experiment

A Restoration Tour of the Site

The Science and Secrets of Un-named Pond

A Walk in the Opulence of July

A Tour - Early August

Planning Notes for 2014

A Cool Hike on a Hot Day July 2013

What a Steward Thinks About September 2012

Somme Woods

Seeding the Snow

Unexpected Discovery of 1910 Studies and Photos

A Progress Report 2017

Weston Cemetery Prairie

A Prairie Yells for Help!

Beauty, Mystery, and Ecology in Various Preserves

Tidbits - April 2019

Thoughts that Lie Too Deep for Tears

One Growing Season - in 48 consecutive images

Index of Posts

Many people have long asked for an index to posts of the Strategies for Stewards blog. So, we have now made a start.

So far, only three of fourteen categories of such indexes have been "finished." (And by "finished" we mean very partially and likely with many errors.) But it's a start.

Links to Posts by Category

Under the categories below are links to posts.
Click on any highlighted category to see its posts.

Species

Plant Posts
Animal Posts

Preserves

Nature Preserve Posts
Other Preserves

Ecosystem types

Prairies
Savannas
Woodlands
Wetlands

Stewardship

Fire
Seeds
Conservation Planning
Monitoring and Study

How They Do It

Leadership, Collaboration, and the Human Community

There may be better ways to do this. If anyone has suggestions, please put them into "Comments" (below), or email them to info@sommepreserve.org

Friday, December 5, 2025

Index of Posts on Plant Species

Agalinis auriculata 2012

Agalinis auriculata 2024

Aster, Forked 2019

Blazing Star, Savanna

Burnett, American

Cardinal Flower and Hummingbirds

Dichanthelium clandestinum

Dogwood, Gray

False-foxglove, Eared 2012

False-foxglove, Eared 2024

False Fox-glove, Skinners

Eurybia furcata 2019

Helianthus strumosus 2024 (control by scything)

Hepatica acutiloba

Hypoxis hirsuta 2019

Hypoxis hirsuta 2022 update on success

Iliamna remota

Japanese Hedge Parsley (and Garlic Mustard)

Lilium philadelphicum andinum

Panicum clandestinum

Plant Refugees

Platanthera leucophaea

Platantbera leucophaea update

Plum, Wild

Prairie Clover, Leafy

Prairie White-fringed Orchid

Prairie White-fringed Orchid update

Prunus americana

Oenothera perennis less technical

Oenothera perennial more technical

Sanguisorba canadensis

Sundrops, Small less technical

Sundrops, Small more technical

Sunflower, Woodland

Sunflower, Woodland (control by scything)

Toadflax, Bastard

Tomanthera auriculata 2012

Tomanthera auriculata 2024

Torilus japonicus

Troglochin species

Vetch, Crown

Vetchling, Cream or Pale

Weed? Alien? Invasive? Malignant?

Wood Pea

Woodland Plant Species

Yellow Stargrass

Yellow Stargrass update on success 2022

Friday, November 7, 2025

To Learn from Yurok Burning

“We are returning it to that open walkable space that looks like it’s cared for and loved – not that overgrown tangled mess that we’re currently faced with.”

Margo Robbins

Yurok Cultural Fire Management Council

The Yuroks are the largest Native American tribe in California, but until recently they had few deer to hunt and little hazel from which to make the baskets that once played a major role in their culture. Even the fish in their river suffered from lack of landscape burning.

That changed when tribal member Margo Robbins began working with others to create fire partnerships. Her vision, good humor, and wisdom are on impressive display in a recent podcast.

The whole podcast is well worth listening to, but here are some summaries and excerpts:

The Yuroks were not too proud to study with state, federal, and Nature Conservancy fire managers who had more recent burn experience and credibility with regulators than the Yuroks. Even so, how likely was it that Native Americans might get authority to burn their own way? The answer seems to have had a lot to do with personal skills; it took vision and perseverance on Robbins’ part … and also on the part of the government staff folks. As Robbins describes the need:

“There is such a deficit of fire on the land that there is no way government agencies can ever catch up. We need to expand the pool who know how to do it safely.”

The Yurok trained, passed tests, volunteered with certified fire managers, and earned the confidence of decision-makers. Now, on tribal lands, the Yurok decide who’s capable of leading burns without day-to-day government approvals. They don’t wear special uniforms or clothes unless needed. A breadth of people, from young to elders, take part.

At some sites, which the Yurok know well, little control is needed:

“When fire gets to those shady damp places, it just goes out.”

When asked what the benefits have been, Robbins laughs merrily and reports:

“I love this question! We have seen such amazing changes on our landscape since we started burning, and it’s just been a little bit more than ten years. But all of the places that we’ve burned – there are deer there. Before we started, the young men would have to go off the reservation and risk big penalties for hunting off reservation, to bring deer home to feed their family. And now they just go to the places where we’ve burned, and they’ll bring home a deer. We have noticed differences in the water table, where before, towards the end of summer, things would be very dry. … The creeks are increasing their flows, so those burns that rely on wet, damp places throughout the year, they are becoming more plentiful. That’s huge.”

“We have so much hazel that we can invite our neighboring tribes to come and gather with us.”

She rejoices to see more babies carried in traditional hazel baskets, and a renaissance of functional and artistic basket-making generally, as well as people with fire management jobs, and a deepening of culture and meaningfulness. Fire empowerment has changed goals and initiative.

“We see people changing their lifestyles because they have an opportunity to do something so meaningful in the community that their old habits and lifestyles no longer suit who they are.”

Is traditional knowledge sufficient?

“Working with fire is a never-ending learning experience. Even if the knowledge of how our ancestors burned came to us fully intact, we would still have to adjust the way we do it because of climate change … and also because of the lack of fire being on the landscape for over 100 years, it is so very different … compared to what our ancestors did when they burned every year.”

About her longer-term vision, Robbins said:

“I see us with our partners taking care of our entire ancestral territory with fire. The Yurok people don’t own a lot of the land. A good portion of it is owned by Forest Service and Parks. So it’s important to partner with those other entities that have jurisdiction over some of the land. So I see those partnerships becoming more solid. Also with the Parks, we have a pretty good relationship with them now. We go down there and burn with them, and they come up and burn with us.”

Only 3% of Yurok former prairie survives with a big reduction of the elk that depend on it.

“I see herds of elk on our homelands. … I see our workforce and equipment increasing. I look forward to the time when we don’t have to get permits from CalFire. That the tribe establishes and claims their full sovereign authority over what we do with our homelands. So, yeah, big dreams! (laughs)”

It’s fun and an honor to be able to learn from such folks.

Photo Credits

First photo: Elizabeth Azzuz

Second photo: A still from "Fire Tender" - part of the "Local, USA" series

Third photo: KNAU News and Talk

Friday, September 19, 2025

Repeat scything of aggressive species facilitates recovery of herbaceous conservatives.

This report - including failures and successes - was submitted to our staff partners in the Cook County Forest Preserves. It is very much unfinished - in process - and will be updated as we analyze additional data and observations.

In some cases, it's clear that mowing helps ecosystems heal. It's a medical treatment. Like bed rest or flossing teeth or physical therapy.

We Somme stewards have the impression that, under some circumstances, most conservative species fail to thrive in many restoration settings, at least in part because "aggressive" or "malignant" big plants make so much shade that the young conservatives die. In other cases, the troublesome plants are "allelopathic" - that is, they make chemicals that are poisonous to nearby plants. The conservative species, which are the heart of healthy, diverse ecosystems, know how to deal with such stressors under natural (high diversity) conditions. But, as with a human patient after major surgery (or the plant counterpart: after major invasives removal), an ecosystem may need temporary "intensive care" to avoid a variety of possibly chronic or fatal disorders.

Thus, mowing may help facilitate the establishment of a conservative turf in which dense conservatives then prevent aggressive species from growing mortally large and dense. Such turf provide niches for the many species that do not thrive in most ecosystem restoration attempts.

The first and main study reported here is only five years old. We use both scythes and power mowers, but the work reported below is from selective cutting with the traditional scythe - a long-handled tool used for centuries to harvest grain.

Scything in open savanna

Scything in a bur oak woodland, near the western edge

Corner of scythed plot with sunflower and Joe Pye weed blooming in the unscythed area

Experiment 1

Thirty-four years of sampling and analysis had documented continually increasing quality in Vestal Grove - a bur oak woodland under restoration. After we published a study on this work, we paused our biennial monitoring. We decided to focus on other areas and other questions. But one set of casual observations troubled us. In some parts of this 4-acre woodland grove, the aggressive woodland sunflower (Helianthus strumosus) seemed to be reversing the trend we had documented in the sampled transect. This possibly-poison-producing species seemed to be killing or shading out what for years had been a general, increasingly-diverse-and-promising turf that had been reflected in those published statistics. Woodland sunflower was also increasing in some of the permanent sampling plots, so, although we paused the monitoring, we launched a new phase of this experiment.

When we finally sampled again, after five years, we were in for surprises. You might think, as we had observed the site at least weekly over those years, we'd know what was happening. But no. We had our impressions. But slow changes among so many species, increasing and decreasing, showing up new or vanishing, the human mind is not strong enough. We needed the numbers.

In the past, we had kept any specialized treatments away from the initially-random, permanent transect plots from which we collected our 34-years of statistics. For a next experiment, we decided to try scything aggressive native species in half the transect plots - and seeding all plots with our standard seed mixes plots. (This transect included areas appropriate to many different seed mixes, wetter and drier, sunnier and shadier. But the data given here cover only the focus of our published paper, the "mesic woodland" plots.)

Despite the previous 34 years of steady improvement, the unscythed areas began losing quality. And after just three years of scything, there appears to be a significant jump in quality of the scythed plots - even though the main species scythed, woodland sunflower (Helianthus strumosus), was more conservative than the plot averages. We also scythed smaller amounts of tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) and briars (Rubus sp. - mostly flagelaris).

The graph below compares scythed compared to unscythed plots in 2024. FQI refers to floristic quality:

Why such a big improvement in scythed plots after 34 years of mostly gradual change? The difference seems stark.

But the graphs below tell a more complicated story. While they show increasing quality for the scythed plots, they also suggest that the two sets of plots (chosen for convenience and "at random" - or so we thought) were not equivalent. Ever since 2011 these two sets of plots (when subsequently looked at separately) seem already to have been going in different directions. The plots we had chosen not to scythe had ceased increasing in Mean FQI per plot and appear to have begun to decrease in Mean cover-weighed FQI. (For cover-weighted FQI, a species with leaves covering half the plot gets more weight than a species covering 10% of the plot.) Future sampling will determine whether the unsythed plots continue to decrease in quality.

Apparently, in our published data, the larger increases in some plots had been obscuring the smaller decreases in others, while we looked only at the aggregate statistics.

To see more deeply into what's going on, in the graphs below species are divided into four groups, based on their coefficients of conservatism (C), each represented by a different color. Orange represents the "weediest" species: think dandelion and ragweed. Red represents "somewhat weedy" native species: think black-eyed Susan and common blue violet. Blue represents high-quality species that can survive some disruption: for example wild bergamot and shooting star. Purple represents the species that are generally found only in high-quality ecosystems: for example: rue anemone or the prairie white-fringed orchid.

The numbers of conservative species in the transect (blue and purple lines) have continued to rise overall.

The graphs of changes of total cover (how much of the plots is covered by the leaves of the various species) show the species of least conservation concern to have diminished to near zero. The species that react most strongly to change in the last two samples are the high conservatives (which fell sharply) and the slightly conservative (red) and mid-conservative (blue) species, which rose slightly.

The decline in the most conservative (purple) species began before the scything of some plots and continued through the post-scything example. Perhaps these species are just slow to rebound? We'll watch what happens to that group with interest. A slightly different take is shown below: proportion of cover rather than total cover.

What's going on may be complicated beyond human understanding - or ChatGPT understanding for that matter. But a look at how these four groups have done helps us think and plan.

The robustness of this data set was reduced by 1) the brief period of time studied (just three years of scything) and 2) a failed attempt to accurately locate some of the plots. We thought we probably knew where they were, but in the end we fully scythed only 5 of the 8 intended plots. We purposely left 9 plots unscythed. That has been corrected and will be reflected in future samples.

In all our analysis since 1985 we've used the Coefficients of Conservatism from the 1994 edition of the Plants of the Chicago Region by Swink and Wilhelm.

Hypothesis and Prediction

One test of a scientific principle is whether it has the power of prediction. We predict that the blue and purple lines will continue to rise for many years, and the less conservative will continue fall, (perhaps to the proportions they showed in 2007 through 2017?). It does not surprise us that the highly conservative species began to level off or decline in 2021 and continued in 2023. That confirms our perception and judgment that woodland sunflower was already stressing these plots in 2021 and that the stress of scything might contribute (temporarily?) to more decline. Or perhaps that interpretation is wrong; perhaps it just takes that much longer for the more conservative species to increase under the sunflowers, and perhaps the unscythed areas will recover. We'll report ongoing results in future years.

How fast and how far can restoration go in restoring ecosystem quality? This is not a trivial question. For sustainable conservation, many “natural area” remnants seem to be too small – especially for animal species (e.g. pollinators) that may be important and may drop out, to the overall loss of ecosystem health. How much effort should go towards attempts to expand small high-quality habitats … compared to large “good quality” (grade C and low B) habitats? We need to increase capacity, but in the real world, there will always be finite amounts. Resources devoted to remnants will have to be balanced with resources devoted to recovery and expansion. Is it more important to double the Grade A acreage … or to surround it with ten or one hundred times the acreage of grade C? Or do we devote ourselves to increasing that C acreage to B? How different are these considerations for one-acre remnants … compared to initiatives like the Markham Prairies, Nachusa Grassland, and Goose Lake Prairie, where small remnants are surrounded by hundreds or thousands of acres of ongoing restoration?

Experiment 2

The second apparently successful example is a "found experiment." We have repeatedly scythed only about 5% (2 acres out of 40) of the restored upland savanna at Somme Prairie Grove. But, to our surprise, as we were evaluating the scything in Vestal Grove while simultaneously doing our annual monitoring of the rare (and formerly Threatened) species, the savanna blazing star (Liatris scariosa), the fact occurred to one of us (Rebecca) that the areas where this plant was doing well corresponded remarkably to the scythed areas. Two small such areas had been scythed purposely to help this species for many years. Those areas are now some of the richest on the site - for all species. But in ten other, larger areas, that were scythed to test other hypotheses, we found this conservative blazing star showing up in large numbers.

Indeed, of the 668 plants of savanna blazing star found, 576 or 86% were in the scythed 5% of the area. Many of the others grew in recently restored areas, which have turned out to be poor habitats, because as dense warm-season grasses take over, these blazing stars drop out. Tim Bell and Nathan Schroeder found that this species competes poorly with dense warm-season grasses in areas of full sun. Their natural habitat seems to be in the dappled light of savannas and open woodlands. Time will tell whether these rare plants will be able to find sustainable niches in such areas (or other areas) at this site. But scything clearly helps them for now.

Other Successes and Failures

We collected no data on some of these because it seemed not worth it. We are principally land stewards, and we have to prioritize how much time to devote to taking data. Often the results seem obvious without data. For those, we rely on observation and judgment.

Three more Successful Experiments

1. Perhaps our first use of the scythe (in the 1980s) was to combat white sweet clover (Melilotus alba) in prairie and open savanna. Covering many acres densely, there was too much for our team to pull. We scythed it a) below the lowest live leaf (which kills it) and b) before seeds were mature. It's now gone completely from those areas. We see it only in areas where brush has recently been cut, with dormant seeds in the seed bank.

2. The open savanna areas of Somme Prairie Grove have long suffered from inappropriate trees planted there decades ago. Planted species included pine, black locust, honey locust, silver poplar, birch and quaking aspen. The aspen, despite a variety of ongoing control attempts, for years grew back repeatedly and darkened large areas. In the end what worked was a frequently repeated variety of simultaneous treatments. We used herbicide (cut and paint and "basal bark") each fall with as much herbicide as allowed, but the resprouts seemed not to diminish. But then we started preventing root enrichment during the growing season by scything. The scythe in this case was handy because of its long reach, allowing us to treat the area with much less trampling of the quality vegetation that we hoped in time would exclude the aspen. It still appears from time to time and needs "touch-ups" but has been reduced to triviality.

3. In our savanna areas, we expect gray dogwood to be a regular part of the mix. But this shrub seems destructive in prairie restoration areas. We now treat it with the same combo approach described for aspen, above. Dogwood persists in these areas, but at apparently trivial and diminishing levels.

Four Failed Experiments

1. We have sometimes scythed tall goldenrod (Solidago altissima) for a year or two in prairie or open savanna - then waited to watch results. The impacts were temporary. Perhaps a longer course of treatment would have worked? Or perhaps the best treatment is simply good overall management and time.

2. In one area where one of our footpaths passed through a stand of big bluestem about twenty feet in diameter. We decided to broadcast a rich seed mix on both sides of the path and scythe the bluestem only one side. In early years it seemed like the scythed area was doing much better than the unscythed. But over a longer time, diverse vegetation took over both areas, demonstrating that the scything was unnecessary (and used time that would better have been invested elsewhere).

3. In a bur oak woodland we scythed tall goldenrod for a few years on one side of the trail, seeded both sides, and watched the results. None were perceived on either side. In the longer run, woodland sunflower replaced the goldenrod here.

4. Shining bedstraw (Galium concinnum) is a plant of quality oak woodlands for which we never find substantial seed. So when we found a patch of this plant (about 20' in diameter) growing under dense woodland sunflower, we scythed half, left the other half unscythed, and broadcast a quality seed mix on both. After two years, there's no sign of the seed mix producing new species, and the scythed half of the bedstraw looks stressed by too much light. We can imagine that this experiment could turn out to demonstrate successes in time, but for now it looks like a failure.

As a reminder, our hypothesis is that a high quality and largely-self-sustainable oak woodland can be restored to a badly degraded area. (Most surviving oak woodlands in the tallgrass region are badly degraded. None are very high quality.) Our principal experiment to test this hypothesis is to burn at least every second year, control aggressive species, and seed a full range of woodland herbs, including the conservatives.

Acknowledgements

Scything, seeding, and monitoring for Experiment 1 by E. Kojima, C. Economou, and S. Packard with data anlysis by Karen Glennemeier.

Most work on Experiment 2 in recent years by Rebeccah Hartz.

This version of this Report prepared by: C. Economou, E. Kojima, M. Dart, S. Packard, and R. Hartz. October 1, 2025.

email alerts

Friday, December 12, 2025

Index of posts on Leadership, Collaboration, and the Human Community

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Index of posts on Woodlands