Broadcast Seeds Into What?

This post is somewhat technical - intended for people working to upgrade grasslands from poor or fair quality to good or high quality. It tries to show the kinds of areas where the most important rare seed will thrive - as opposed to areas where rare seed will just die.

It is basically ten photos and comments that illustrate some principles.

To find the best spots or areas, it will help greatly if you can recognize common plant species like daisy, Queen Anne's lace, bluegrass, wild strawberry, etc. And you'll have to be able to recognize them without their flowers, because you'll be broadcasting most seed after the vegetation has died back in the fall.

If you don't have the time and inclination to learn the common plants, it's possible that you can just learn to recognize plant structure, as described below. So, it's not hopeless, but you'd do better to learn the plants on the land where you're working - or find a friend who can.

SUMMARY PHOTO 1:  A GREAT SPOT TO PLANT:

The photo above shows the kind of place where you could successfully sow seeds of downy gentian, purple prairie clover, leadplant, Leiberg's panic grass, dropseed, and alumroot. If you don't know why you might want those species to replace the ones above, check out this discussion of "conservative species" and "quality ecosystems."

What are the species most visible in the photo above, and why would they welcome rare conservative seed? 

The most obvious species in the photo above are daisy, wild strawberry, bluegrass, prairie rose, and other common species of "weedy" or "damaged" habitats. The most important structural elements of this photo are the diversity and the fact that you can see through the plants to the soil.

If you broadcast conservative seed into this open turf in fall or winter, those seeds will germinate late next spring, put down roots, raise up a few small leaves, and strategically invest most of their matter and energy into sinking those roots deeper and deeper. That's how they'll ultimately replace most of the vegetation above. Seedlings of many quality species will be less than an inch tall for the whole first year. The open structure here will allow sun to get to them all summer. By the second year they may be two or a few inches tall - but have roots that go down two or three feet. Within a few years, they'll be big burly plants with huge root systems and perhaps twenty high-quality species will have replaced most of the dominant ten or so disturbance-dependent species in the photo.

By spring, on a hot, dry day, there will be enough dead bluegrass and other leaf little for a pathetic little burn here. But that burn will discourage the bluegrass and very much encourage the fire-adapted prairie species. So burning would much help the recovery process.

SUMMARY PHOTO 2:  UGLY, BAD SPOT. DON'T PLANT HERE.

Three reasons not to invest your precious rare seed here: First, the main plant here is tall goldenrod, and it grew so dense last summer as to shade out (and possibly poison) most other vegetation. This mess would next summer likely kill most of the seedlings that germinated from your seeds. Second, those green leaves you see here and there are young buckthorns - one of the few species that gradually grow up under the tall goldenrod. You would be smarter to control the thousands of buckthorn plants per acre before you plant the seed. Third, goldenrod areas typically won't carry a fire. Thus no fire would help control the buckthorn here nor promote the fire-adapted prairie species.

We follow these two summary "good" and "bad" photos with a variety of photos illustrating various opportunities and dangers.

PHOTO 3:  GOOD IN THE FUTURE

The photo above shows dense Kentucky bluegrass. This will be a great place to broadcast the seed of quality species - but not yet. This grass is so dense that it would shade out the little prairie seedlings next summer. However, if you give this area a nice little burn in the spring or early fall when the bluegrass is green, for a year or three, the grass will suffer. It will thin out enough to let sunlight down to the soil all summer long and will welcome prairie seedlings. If you do this (or if you're just burning as best you can, given fickle weather conditions), watch carefully. Plant wherever the bluegrass - or smooth brome or most other cool season grasses - are starting to thin out. If you burn for too many years, the bluegrass will be replaced by tall goldenrod or meadow fescue, which will not be so welcoming to your prairie seed. Be sure to keep burning annually if possible for a few years after you broadcast that precious seed. That will help the good guys and hurt the bad.

PHOTO 4: URGENT

This photo has much in common with the first, but with some twists. More bare ground and even moss are visible along with some seedheads of annual foxtail grass, trumpeting that this area is highly ready for some new succeeding vegetation.  What will it be? A few stalks of big blue stem grass indicate that it has started to drop its seeds here. Buckthorn is visible. Broadcast diverse conservatives here soon, while you have the chance.

PHOTO 5:  BIG BLUE AND INDIAN, BUT NOT TOO DENSE

Though true prairie species, big bluestem (above, darker and redder) and Indiangrass (above, paler) when planted too much and too soon can grow so dense as to crowd out most other prairie species. But if you look close, above, you can see that the tall grasses are still in well-separated clumps, with a lot of space in between where I can see many short-statured, non-conservative species. There's a reasonable chance of establishing many conservatives here, especially if this area is burned annually for a few years. Huge amounts of tall grass seed has certainly fallen here - to compete with the much smaller amount of rare conservative seed that we'd be able throw into the competition. But sometimes large amounts of one kind of seedlings, trying to do the same thing and relying on the same resources, out-compete each other. Diverse species with varied timings, nutrient needs, root strategies, etc. get a chance to establish. So I'd invest some seed here, but not as much as in a place like the preceding.

PHOTO 6: DENSE TALL GRASS

On the other hand, I wouldn't invest much seed in this thatch, unless I had huge amounts. This big blue stem is so dense that it would be a tough competitor. If you don't burn, the seeds would germinate in dark and death. If you burned annually, some fine species could slowly establish here, but there are better places for most seed.

PHOTO 7: NOT SO EASY

I'll use the photo to make the point that priorities are often not all that clear, or at least that the fellow who's drafting this post doesn't feel like he knows all the answers.

On the one hand, in the photo above, the cool-season grasses are so rank that I'd be reluctant to invest too much quality seed here. On the other hand, I see the airy seedheads of foxtail grass, an annual, suggesting that new seedlings can establish, at least for the first year after a burn (as in this case). Perhaps if there were no burn the following year, conservative seedlings would get shaded out then. On the other hand, there is some diversity visible, and possibly more niches for new plant establishment. Perhaps if I had extra-large quantity of more robust prairie species, I might invest some of it here.

PHOTO 8: TRICK PHOTO

What do you think of this one?
It's a trick photo, perhaps, or a change of pace to ease your mind.
This is Grade A prairie.
It does not need any more seed.
On the other hand, notice that it has some elements in common with the "most seedable" areas. It's highly diverse, and you can see through the bigger plants all the way down to the smallest and to the soil (perhaps not so obvious in this photo).
In any case, this is the structure that prairie species ultimately are adapted to reproducing in.

PHOTO 9: UGLY PHOTO; BEAUTIFUL PLACE

This tedious photo is nevertheless beautiful to the eye of a person looking to restore a glorious ecosystem. There are many clues - that you might want to learn. As discussed before, it's a good indicator that you can see all the way down to the dirt; it is not covered with dense thatch. An encouraging species here is Queen Anne's lace (also called wild carrot). Learn that lacy foliage. The plant is a biennial; its presence tells us that new species may readily establish here. Another clue is ox-eye daisy, another leaf for you to learn; it's a plant that needs ample light penetrating to near the soil surface all summer long. Of course, many prairie seedlings need the same, and after a few years, daisy will give way to them.  Most of the vegetation in this photo, aside from the bluegrass, is rigid or early goldenrod. These are non-conservative prairie goldenrods, that sometimes win out for a while in degraded areas. They will happily give way to other prairie species as the bluegrass burns out.

PHOTO 10: PRETTY FOR NOW

The tenth photo may help you learn to identify some of the most promising "before" plants - and even inspire you to go out looking for them? (Note, they won't be so colorful a month or two from now when most seed is planted.)

Three leaves with sharp teeth pointing toward the end of the leaf means wild strawberry. Some of this plant's leaves are green in this photo, and some have turned red. This species is common in high quality prairies and in highly plantable areas.

Ox-eye daisy leaves are often half-buried under other plants. They are wider toward the end and have rounded lobes or scallops. The easiest one to see here is a rosette on the right side of the photo about a third of the way up from the bottom.

Bluegrass is those very fine leaves that will stay bright green until December.

The dark green and purple-blotched leaves belong to beard-tongue, a common species of succeeding old fields that lives more sustainably in the savanna. Here it contributes to a diverse turf and will politely fade out as more conservative species become established.

TWO FINAL QUESTIONS:

• What would happen if we didn't restore prairie in the "most plantable" places shown above?

Answer: If we don't burn, buckthorn or other woody plants will shade out all the species in the photos. (There are already small buckthorns visible in some, if you look close.) If we do burn but don't plant seeds, the bluegrass (which seems to be the main element holding this community relatively stable) will fade out and probably be replaced by tall goldenrod or similar tall thug. Then, most of the diversity present above will also die, and the buckthorn will slowly grow tall and dense enough to shade out the goldenrod. Thus, getting these kinds of places to stay stable is not an easy option. 

• Yeah, but what will happen to the "more challenging" places shown above, where seeding wasn't recommended? 

Answer: If we don't burn, they'll become brush. If we do burn every year or two, they may become prairie - if there's recovering prairie all around them. Perhaps we'll restore enough good vegetation that we overwhelm the invasives and thugs with an annual seed rain. Over the years, varied weather conditions, plant diseases, etc. will provide the openings that some quality species need. As some conservatives become established, the new niches they create will pave the way for others. We understand only bits of how these things work, but we've seen many examples of quality overcoming obstacles. We've also seen examples of that not happening. Then perhaps brush triumphs, and we start over. Or we mow for a while to disadvantage the thugs. Some people herbicide.

Restoring damaged ecosystems is a new field. We do first what we know how to do. Then we experiment with approaches to the next challenges.

Thanks for proofing and editorial suggestions to Eriko Kojima and Kathy Garness.