Conserving Prairie History

On the National Parks Service website for the Homestead National Monument of America which was last updated May, 2011, Adolph Murie is quoted in 1940 as saying, “In restoring the prairie grasslands the ultimate aim is to approach as near the original as possible. How near the original we can come is not known. But it would seem desirable to make an effort early in the program to restore some of the more prominent spring, summer and fall flowers to show a part of Nature which no doubt gave some cheer to the first settlers.”

By Katie Graham
Southeast Community College

Today I will inform you about the efforts to conserve the grasses and forbs, or flowers, of the prairie. I will speak about why it is important to conserve this quickly fading ecosystem, what is being done at the Homestead National Monument to conserve the prairie, and what is being done right here on our own campus [Southeast Community College] to conserve a piece of history.

Countless prairie restoration projects exist over all of North America today. Conservationists are trying to restore an ecosystem that is quickly fading. Once this natural habitat is destroyed completely, none of us will be able to enjoy what we never appreciated as being there in the first place. The tall grass prairies, which use to cover billions of acres, has now become the most extinct ecosystem in all of North America according to Sarah Osterhoudt and her article A Prairie Primer in OnEarth an online journal from the fall of 2001.

There is debate over what constitutes being restored, though. It can take many centuries to bring back the original assortment of soil, plants, and animals. It is not enough to throw down seeds and hope they produce a prairie. According to John Carey and his article Little Habitat on the Prairie Only Remnants Remain of the Nation's Original Prairie, and Biologists Are Scrambling to Understand and Restore What is Left from National Wildlife (2002), the hand of humans is needed first to replant the original vegetation where needed and then to keep it healthy, along with the occasional need for orchestrated fire and grazing.

The grasses and forbs, or flowers, of the prairie have begun adapting over the last thousand years or so to conditions that others plants and trees can’t handle. According to Katherine Kerlin and her article in the online journal E, entitled Return of the Native: Natural Prairies Slowly Make a Comeback in May of 2002, the native vegetation has adapted their root systems into one that can delve 12 to 20 feet into the ground which helps control erosion and adds to water quality by absorbing waste runoff. As you can see in this illustration, the prairie grasses have extensive root systems that develop before the plants ever start reaching out above ground. Above ground, the native plants help in snow control and preventing drifts across roads and can reach up to 10 or more feet. (Kerlin, 2002).

Now that I have told you a little about trying to restore the prairie ecosystem, one that has become the most extinct in North America, and how the grasses and forbs have begun adapting to harsh conditions, let’s talk about what we are doing here in Nebraska to conserve the prairie we have.

Nebraska is home to the second oldest prairie conservation in the United States which started in 1939. And while we may not all come from Nebraska, conserving any prairie in North America should be something we all care about. Through the restoration project at the Homestead National Monument, park staff has been able to bring back many of the original and diverse plants of the prairie (National Park Service, 2011).

On the National Parks Service website for the Homestead National Monument of America, James and Debacker in their Plant Community Monitoring Trend Report from 2007, state that currently there are 116 different species of plants present at the Homestead.

In an interview on August 14, 2011, with Jesse Bolli, who is a Resource Management Specialist at the Homestead National Monument, about 60 acres of the land is native trees, 100 acres is the prairie, which is broken into 20% for thicket, 25% for grasses and roughly 55% for forbs and other plants. The main ways they help control and encourage the prairie growth is through controlled burns, some mowing, and little herbicide. Controlled burns at the Homestead started in 1970. In 1990 the rotation was changed to a three year rotation and again in 2004 to burn 2/5 every year, taking the 4 year to rest. The Homestead uses herbicide only when needed and on a low level setting so as not to spray a large area.

Now that I have told you about the efforts at the Homestead National monument in restoring and conserving the prairie, let’s take a look a little closer to us and see what SCC is doing to conserve the natural prairie. Southeast Community College started its restoration program in 2007 to conserve what they can of the original plants. In an interview on August 14, 2011 with Nate Walker, who works here on the SCC campus in the Prairie Partnership office, SCC began with a high diversity planting with seeds from the Prairie Plains Resource Institute. Only local seed from around Nebraska was chosen to be planted, because plants outside Nebraska may affect other plant species growth or may be too weak to thrive under our soil conditions.

There were 16 species of grasses, five species of sedges, 17 species of legumes, 41 species of composites and 40 species of forbs planted in the high diversity planting which totals about 119 species. Another 10 to 20 species were collected and added later and about 10 species of weedy natives were present naturally (N. Walker, 2011).

The SCC prairie conservation is in its fourth growing season now. They had their last scheduled burn in February of 2008 which they do every three years, and that is why the flowers are so big now. After a scheduled burn, which is fed by the tall grass fuel, the flowers have a chance to take over and flourish. The grasses are usually dominant in summer and fall (N. Walker, 2011).

As we see in these pictures I took here at SCC, the flowers are tall and vibrant, while the grasses are a little shorter yet. This makes for better health for the ecosystem. The cycle of burning, grazing(which neither SCC nor the Homestead do), produces flowers that are higher in the graze lands and burn spots and eventually give way to the grasses in the summer and fall months (N. Walker, 2011).

We have just taken a look at what SCC and the Prairie Partnership office is doing to conserve the natural plants found in Nebraska through there high diversity planting and maintenance of our little patch of history. Thank you for listening as I informed you about the efforts to conserve the grasses and forbs of the prairie. Numerous restoration projects are in swing all over North America to conserve a quickly fading ecosystem, Nebraska is home to the second oldest prairie conservation in America, and Southeast Community College began its restoration project in 2007 to aid in conserving a part of history. It may take hundreds of years to restore a prairie close to its originality, but it’s worth the time and effort to save a little piece of our own history for generations to come.

References:

Bolli, J. Resource Management Specialist at the Homestead National Monument of America
(personal communication, interview, August, 14, 2011).

Carey, J. (2000, June-July). Little habitat on the prairie - only remnants remain of the nation's original prairie, and biologists are scrambling to understand and restore what is left. National Wildlife.

James, K., & DeBacker, M. (2007). Plant community monitoring trend report. Homestead National Monument of America.

Kerlin, K. (2002, May-June). Return of the native: Natural prairies slowly make a comeback. E, 13, 3, 22.

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior. (2011, May). Nature and science. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/home/naturescience/index.htm

Osterhoudt, S. (2001, Fall). A prairie primer. OnEarth, 23, 3, 27.

Walker, N. Prairie Partnership at SCC (personal communication, interview, August, 9, 2011)

Photo credits: Katie Graham

Homestead Simulates Nature’s Solution, Fire

Homestead National Monument of America recently performed a prescribed burn on a portion of the restored tall grass prairie. I have been in and around areas that have conducted controlled burns, but I never took the time to learn about why this needed to be done. I began investigating the history of prescribed fire and its benefits to a tall grass prairie ecosystem and I would like to share that.

The tall grass prairie is one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. We have lost over 99% of all tall grass prairies in North America due in large part to agriculture and the construction of our vast infrastructure. In less than 200 years Euro-American society nearly destroyed what had been maintained for millennia by nature and the Native American Indian. Nature provided grazers, like the bison, along with droughts and fire to preserve this fragile environment. American Indian’s would routinely set fire to the prairie in order to attract the bison because bison were attracted to fire; bison sought the remnants of a burned prairie because it provided a nutritious meal. All of these natural efforts created a thriving ecosystem that covered over 250 million acres in the United States.

Fire on the prairie, however, became a hazard in the 19th and 20th centuries. The United States had expanded throughout the prairie and the plains and farmers transformed the vast tall grass prairies into crop fields. Tall grass prairies had been absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the soil for centuries, making it perfect for growing large quantities of crops. The combination of farmers clearing the land, towns and cities being built, along with railroads and highways spreading throughout the area, the once thriving tall grass prairie rapidly disappeared.

Today the existing tall grass prairie comes to us mostly through restoration efforts. State and National initiatives have brought back a small amount of this once flourishing ecosystem. Yet, restoration efforts are always fighting an uphill battle to control the delicate balance of these bio-systems. Natural resource specialists are constantly battling an onslaught of invasive species and noxious vegetation. Nature’s solution, fire, has become the tool of choice to limit and control harmful intrusions while stimulating the growth of native grasses. By simulating the natural conditions that had allowed the tall grass prairie to thrive, we can manage and maintain the little bit that we have left.

Tallgrass Prairies

If you had been standing in your very own backyard seven generations ago, your sight would have been quite different from what it is today. You would have seen tall grasses and beautiful wildflowers stretching to the horizon in every direction. “An ocean of grassland” once covered major areas of Nebraska, Kansas, North and South Dakota, and parts of Oklahoma and Texas. Today only 0.2 percent of the native tall grass prairies remain in the area you all grew up (Rice, 2009).

By Tasha Jackson

Southeast Community College

I have spent many hours admiring the astonishing beauty of Mother Nature. The tall grass prairies are one of my favorite things in nature to see. I would like to take the time to tell you about the tall grass prairies including the kinds of flowers and animals that inhabit the tall grass prairie, the problems that affect the prairie, and the restoration efforts that are in place to protect these areas.

I will start out by telling you a little about the flowers and animals that live their lives in the tall grass prairies. We all know what a field of wildflowers looks like, but many of us have never and will never be able to see the astonishing wildflowers that grew in the tall grass prairies that existed long ago. There was a large variety of flowers and grasses that grew in these natural prairies. There was once 720 species of plants growing on the prairies of western Nebraska (Randolph & Shevchuk-Murray, 2007).

Some of the flowers and grasses include bluestem grass, purple Echinacea, and Indian grass (Rice, 2009). Others include soap weed Yucca, Buffalo grass, daisies, milkweed, prairie roses, morning glory, and leadplant just to name a few (Randolph & Shevchuk-Murray, 2007).

According to Ladette Randolph and Nina Shevchuk-Murray in their 2007 book The Big Empty, plants on the tall grass prairie have roots that can reach anywhere from a couple of feet up to 16 or more feet into the ground. The magnificent mixture of perennial species of grasses and flowers made the prairie a successful natural habitat and contributed to the resistance of disease (Rice, 2009). A field of one plant or crop will be easily overcome by disease. If a field has large species diversity, the disease will likely die off because it can only affect one or two plants at a time instead of several thousand plants at once.

There is also a wide variety of animals that call the tall grass prairie home. When the prairies were more plentiful, animals like bison, pronghorn deer, mule deer, elk, and the greater prairie chicken roamed the tall grasses (Randolph & Shevchuk-Murray, 2007). Now that the vast majority of the tall grass prairies are gone these animals have had to adapt to other habitats. Now that you know what lives in the prairie, let me tell you about the problems this area is facing.

There are several threats toward the survival of the tall grass prairie. Every one of us has driven past field after field of corn or some form of cropland as we drive through Nebraska, Kansas, and many other states. Many of the grasslands that were in these areas have been turned into cropland or grazing fields for livestock. Would you be shocked to find out that seventy-five million acres of American land are used to raise grains to feed livestock alone (Rice, 2009)?

According to Stanley Rice in his 2009 book Green Planet, “nearly all of the North American tall grass prairies have been converted to prime agricultural land because of the deep rich soil they have.” The problem with this is that once the tall grass prairies are destroyed by plowing…“they can never come back unless they are deliberately replanted.” 

The tall grass prairies depend on natural cycles of fires to survive. The problem is that people prevent many natural fires from occurring and without these fires the prairies are dying. The grasses are not killed by the fires because they have underground buds that ensure their survival. Natural fires are most beneficial to the tall grass prairies when they occur in the fall and spring because the new grasses have not yet begun to grow. These prairies need the fires to turn the dead stems and leaves into fertilizing ashes so the new grasses can flourish in the rich soil (Rice, 2009).

Now that you know the problems surrounding the survival of the prairies, let me tell you how they are being solved. I would like to let you know what restoration efforts are currently in place to protect this beloved area. We can help with the restoration efforts by participating in the periodic controlled fires that are conducted each year or by helping to replant the tall grass prairie. “In 1965, the Iowa State Preserves System was created.” Since then, more than 63 areas have been created for the restoration of the native prairies (Shirley, 1994).

According to Shirley’s 1994 book Restoring the Tallgrass Prairie there are 240 acres of prairie being protected near Lime Springs in Howard County, Iowa and 60 acres devoted to the National Wildflower Research Center. Another restoration effort was started by the grant of $10 million by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the prairie.

In the spring of 1992 planting began with 4 acres of forbs and 73 acres of big bluestem grass. An additional 400 acres of prairie were planted in the spring of 1993. In 1994, “4,922 acres had been purchased and authorization had been granted to purchase an additional 8,654 acres for the purpose of prairie restoration” (Shirley, 1994). A third restoration effort is called Chicago Wilderness. This is an effort to restore 7,000 acres of prairie landscape in suburban areas around Chicago (Freinkel, 2007).

According to Susan Freinkel in her 2007 book American Chestnut, this group wants to remove trees from local forest preserves to make room for a tall grass prairie reservation area. The danger of losing the diversity of grasses and wildflowers forever was well worth the loss of the few trees it would cost.

I would love to have been alive back in the 1800’s to see the tall grass prairies at their finest hour. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share the beauty of the tall grass prairie.  I have shared with you the kinds of flowers and animals that inhabit the tall grass prairie, the problems that affect the prairie, and the restoration efforts that are in place to protect these areas. I hope that when you drive by field after field of cropland on your way home, you stop to think of the way the land looked thousands of years ago.

References:

Freinkel, S. (2007). American chestnut: The life, death, and rebirth of a perfect tree. Berkeley University Press. Retrieved May 2, 2010 from Netlibrary.

Randolph, L, & Shevchuk-Murray, N. (2007). The big empty: Contemporary Nebraska nonfiction writers. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Retrieved May 2, 2010 from Netlibrary.

Rice, S. (2009). Green planet: How plants keep the Earth alive. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Retrieved May 2, 2010 from Netlibrary.

Shirley, S. (1994). Restoring the tallgrass prairie: An illustrated manual for Iowa and the upper Midwest. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press. Retrieve May 2, 2010 from Netlibrary.

The Tallgrass Prairie

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play… What do you think of when you hear those lyrics most recently sung by Neil Young? I don’t know about you but I think of a wide open hilly field with grass swaying beautifully in the wind. I am fairly certain that is what Brewster Higley had in mind when he wrote the original poem in1872 titled The Western Home.

by Michaela Papp

Southeast Community College

Apparently he was living in Kansas at the time and was describing what is now known as the tallgrass prairie. Chances are if you are sitting in this room, you are currently living in Nebraska and have seen how beautiful what is left of the tallgrass prairie is. Having been born and raised in Nebraska, I could take you to a few areas that remind me of those lyrics. Today I have the opportunity to share my knowledge and love of the tallgrass prairie. First, I will be informing you about what exactly the tallgrass prairie is and how it was created. Then, I will discuss some of the plants and animals that live within it and how some of them dealt with this harsh environment. Finally, I will tell you about what people are doing to preserve and restore the tallgrass prairie.

Back in the 1500’s, the tallgrass prairie was part of a grassland that stretched from Manitoba, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Rocky Mountains to Kentucky (Preserving our Prairie Heritage, 2009). Unfortunately, if you have traveled to any state in the area recently, you will notice that it seems like all you will see is fields of corn, beans, and other crops (Allen, 2007). According to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, “The tallgrass prairie was the dominant presettlement vegetation type in the eastern third of the Great Plains occupying approximately 142.62 million acres; today, only an estimated four percent remains.” Most of this four percent is located within the Flint Hills in eastern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. This area has been preserved from plowing up for farmland because of its unique rocky landscape (Tallgrass Prarie National Preserve).

It took about 20 million years to make this large stretch of tallgrass prairie (Allen, 2007). If you are anything like me this comes as a bit of a shock to you. Grass isn’t too hard to grow and it comes up in a lot of places, so how could it take that long? According to Preserving our Prairie Heritage from 2009, “It was a unique, finely tuned system of living things and environmental factors – the result of millions of years of interaction among soil, climate, fire, changing surface features such as hills and valleys, and a host of plants and animals.” Basically, what this quote is saying is that the tallgrass prairie wasn’t just a bunch of grass growing; it was pretty organized when you really look into it.

Believe it or not, fires had a lot to do with the creation of the tallgrass prairie. How could such a destructive thing help create such a beautiful landscape? Long before people inhabited the tallgrass prairie, lightening would cause a fire to start, three to four times a year. Winds would spread the fire rapidly, cutting back the grass in a pruning type of way. The fires wouldn’t actually kill the grass but after being cut back time and time again, the root systems on the grass would become very stable (Preserving our Prairie Heritage, 2009). According to The Harsh Prairie Environment, written by Tricia Andryszewski, “Grasses often grow even better after a fire, which clears away years of dead stalks, allowing light and air to reach new growth at ground level.”

Not only were these fires helpful for strengthening the grass, they were also helpful in keeping the tallgrass prairie from over-population. As stated in Preserving our Prairie Heritage from 2009, “Many animals perished in a prairie fire. Among those lucky enough to escape were adult birds, burrowing creatures, and surface dwellers that were swift enough to get to water.” The animals that were able to survive the fires lived on food they had stored underground. A few days after a fire, new green plants would make their way up from strong roots (Preserving our Prairie Heritage, 2009).

Due to these fires and the lack of rain fall, most trees were only able to survive around bodies of water. However, some trees that don’t need a lot of rainfall to live, survived. The fires are the main reason the tallgrass prairie didn’t turn into a forest. (Andryszewski, 1993).

At first the humans only helped the process of making and retaining the tallgrass prairie. The early settlers would start fires to help scare out animals and clear out areas to put their villages. We were not quite as helpful after John Deere revealed his first plow in 1837 (Allen, 2007). Thus began a little bit of the agricultural revolution, and the beginning of the disappearance of the tallgrass prairie.

Now that we know a little bit more about what the tallgrass prairie is and how it was made, let’s discuss some of the plants and animals that lived in it. We all are familiar with the plants and animals we see in our area, however it is rather interesting to find out what used to live around here and how they have adapted to the new landscape.

As stated in Ecology (2009), “The ability to resist the damaging effects of drought and to actually benefit from fire has helped big bluestem grass become the most common species of grass on the tallgrass prairie…”
Studies have shown that after burns this grass grew faster and thicker with more abundant leaves, and produced more nutrients, more efficiently than the big bluestem grass that remained unburned. As I pointed out before, it was concluded that the fires removed the dead leaves and stems from previous years. By cleaning this out, more sunlight was able to reach the new grass, apparently strengthening the species.

Another characteristic that helped big bluestem grass thrive was that its leaves curled up to reduce the amount of sunlight striking them. This also helped reduce the water lost through transpiration (Ecology, 2009).

The second most common species of grass found on the tallgrass prairie is switchgrass. Switchgrass needs more moisture for it to be able to survive, but still not as much as most other types of grass (Ecology, 2009).

Despite the disappearing tallgrass prairie, no plants from it are on the Species in Need of Conservation list. There are, however, two plants on the federal threatened species list: western prairie fringed orchid and the meads milkweed (Tallgrass Prarie National Preserve).

About 120 mammal species are currently found on the tallgrass prairie. The most common of these are the mule deer, white-tailed deer, antelope, and bison. The black bear, grizzly bear, mountain lion, and elk have been sighted in the past, but not since the late 1800s (Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve). Even though the thought of mountain lions and bears running around here is a little scary, I think it would be awesome to be able to see such beautiful creatures. While learning more about the tallgrass prairie, I can’t help but wonder how different our landscape could have been.

As for birds, there have been 428 species documented. While studying the birds that live within the tallgrass prairie, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Biological Resources Division suggested to burn prior to the breeding season or in the fall to ensure they will not become extinct (Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve). This is a good recommendation because as stated by the Tallgrass Prarie National Preserve, “Spring burning followed by grazing resulted in reproduction levels below replacement rates.”

There are 28 species of amphibians (8 salamanders and 20 frogs) and 53 species of reptiles (4 turtles, 12 lizards, and 37 snakes). However the Tallgrass Prarie National Preserve thought it was important to point out that these were identified mostly by untrained volunteers over a two day period. So these numbers aren’t exact, but they give us a pretty good idea of how many amphibians and reptiles are still living in the tallgrass prairie area (Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve).

Finally, now that we know more about what the tallgrass prairie is and how it was made, and what kinds of plants and animals inhabit it, let’s discuss what people are doing to preserve and restore it.

As I stated before, the prairie burned on average every three to four years. Today, ranch managers that are working to preserve the tallgrass prairie are burning off their preserved prairie every year. They are doing this because this causes their grazing cattle to gain more weight and in turn be more profitable. As of now they are using cattle; however, their hopes are one day to reintroduce bison to the landscape.

While cattle and bison are similar, their effects on the tallgrass prairie are different. Cattle usually eat more of the native forbes while bison are almost exclusively grass eaters. (Schlyer, 2008) According to At Home on the Prairie, written by Krista Schlyer in 2007, “As with any altered ecosystem, especially on as altered as the tallgrass prairie, trying to reconfigure the natural system is difficult.” This just goes to show that they have come to terms with the fact that the restoration of the tallgrass prairie will take a while to figure out.

The biggest challenge to restoration lies underground where 70 percent of the tallgrass prairie’s biomass resides. As I stated in my first point, in order for the grass to be successful in growing back after all of the burns, the root system needs to be strong. According to Rebirth in the Prairie State written by Karen Schmidt, “Even after 15 years of restoration, a prairie’s soil ecosystem still bears the shallow simplicity of the cornfield it was built upon.” Since it took millions of years for these root systems to become so strong, you can imagine it might take a few more than 15 years to fully restore the tallgrass prairie.

To ensure that the tallgrass prairie isn’t completely destroyed in the next few years, more and more prairie scientists and public and private organizations are encouraging state legislatures and land owners to donate or sell tallgrass prairie land for preservation (Preserving our Prairie Heritage, 2009). If we don’t try to preserve it, there is a good chance the rest of the tallgrass prairie will be gone in the next few decades.

Today we learned a lot about the tallgrass prairie. I shared my knowledge and love of this beautiful grassland. We talked about what exactly it is, some of the plants and animals that lived within the tallgrass prairie, and what people are doing to preserve and restore it. Hopefully one day we will be able to look back and be very glad that we saved the tallgrass prairie, not wish that we had tried harder.

References

Allen, L. (2007). Prarie revival. Science News. Retrieved April, 15 2010 from eLibrary research database.

Andryszewski, T. (1993). The dust bowl. Chapter 1: The harsh prairie environment. Retrieved April 15, 2010 from eLibrary research database.

Ecology. (2009). World Book Science Year. Retrieved April 15, 2010 from eLibrary research database.

Preserving our prairie heritage. (2009). World Book Year Books. Retrieved April 15, 2010 from eLibrary research database.

Schlyer, K. (2007). At home on the prairie. National Parks. Retrieved April 18, 2010 from eLibrary research database.

Schmidt, K. (1992). Rebirth in the prairie state. U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved April 15, 2010 from eLibrary research database.

Tallgrass prairie national preserve. The Affected Environment. Retrieved April 25, 2010 from http://www.nps.gov/archive/tapr/parkdocuments.htm

How to Harvest Native Seed

A Homestead Congress Blog Reader writes..."I'd love to hear more about how you collect native seed. We are doing similar work in Colorado."

Homestead National Monument Ranger Jesse Bolli responds...

Thank you for your interest in preserving native landscapes. Local seed collection is an important part of any restoration. By harvesting the seeds locally, you are insuring that the seed is adapted for your area. Many hands are very important in a successful seed harvest. At Homestead, we are blessed to have a very involved volunteer group and a supportive community which make the job easier.

We do not use any fancy equipment when we are harvesting seed. A bag to put the seed in, gloves and training are all we provide for the volunteers. The key to a successful volunteer harvesting event is to do your scouting beforehand. Know what plants you want and where they are abundant.

At Homestead, we start each event with an educational and safety message. This helps to inform the volunteers why what they are doing is so vital to preserving native vegetation. We then head to the prairie to collect the seed. Ripe seed heads easily come off by using your hand to strip the seeds into the bag. Each species is put in its own bag. We have found that it works best to work in smaller groups, ten or fewer, ensuring that each group has one person who can easily identify the species that need to be collected. If you are targeting rare species, you will need to have even smaller groups or work individually. I have also found that it is helpful to make small guides for the volunteers to remind them what species we are targeting.

If hand harvesting is not feasible for the amount of seed that you need you may be able to rent or borrow a mechanical seed harvester that can be pulled with an ATV or tractor to speed up the process. Local Nature Conservancy and state game agencies would be a great place to start looking for a harvester to rent.

Other sources of interest

Inventor Helps Grasslands Go Native
ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2006)

Restoring California's native grasses
Agricultural Research, May, 2004

Wildlife Habitat
Warm Season Grasses for Wildlife

Tallgrass Prairie Seed Collecting at Homestead National Monument of America

In order to connect with nature one must interact with nature…




The tallgrass prairie was once a vast ocean of grasses, flowers, animals and insects. This tallgrass prairie was the dominant landscape covering over 240 million acres of the North American Great Plains before 1820. By 1900, this dominant landscape was slowly turning to farmland and the once vast prairie was left to scattered remnants. Today, less than two percent of the original 240 million acres of the tallgrass prairie remain.

Homestead National Monument of America contains 100 acres of this special prairie land, but not without effort. The monument was created in 1936. The prairie had already been transformed from its original state and needed restoration. The goal was to not only restore the prairie, but to recreate the view of what Daniel and Agnes Freeman saw when they made their homestead claim. The tallgrass prairie at Homestead National Monument of America is the oldest restored tallgrass prairie in the National Park Service and the second oldest in the nation.

The restoration, although spanning over 60 years, is still ongoing. The management needed to keep the prairie healthy is the work of its stewards. Hands-on stewardship aids in the appreciation and respect for ecosystems that are disappearing. From controlled burns, thicket and exotic plant removal, to native seed harvest, it is with this help the prairie will survive.

Homestead National Monument of America has been harvesting native plant seeds each weekend in October. Children, parents, grandparents and friends have all waded into the prairie to pick and gather seed from grasses and flowers to support the future of this special place.

To stand within the prairie, among grasses and flowers that stare you in the eye is a unique feeling. One can’t help but think of the pioneers that traveled through this mysterious and wondrous ecosystem. The awe that its vastness one inspired is truly imaginable when harvesting seed.

 Southeast Community College students assisting with seed collection.

Fire and the Restoration of Homestead NM Grass Prairies

Before Americans of European descent settled on the Great Plains fire would have periodically occurred in the woodlands area that is now part of Homestead National Monument (NM) of America. The woodlands of the Monument would have had a much different composition and look than they do today as the “tall grass prairies once covered 140 million acres of North America. [but] Farming, urbanization, and invasive plant species have reduced this ecosystem to 1% of its original range” (NPS Fire and Aviation Program).

Management of Homestead NM would, if possible, like to return the woodlands to their pre-settlement composition and look. An example of this fire management can bee seen at:

Homestead National Monument of America Presentation - FLASH

An interactive story of maintaining the tall grass prairie in Nebraska through prescribed fire.

To help obtain this goal the Homestead National Monument of America is conducting a hydrology project for Cub Creek and the woodlands surrounding Cub Creek with the aide and assistance of the Great Lakes Northern Forest CESU and Michigan Technological University of Houghton, Michigan. The primary focus of the project is to determine where the trees in the woodlands acquire their water. This will be completed by comparing the different oxygen isotopes found in the rainwater, ground water, soil moisture, and creek water to what is in the cambium of bur oak trees. Three sites in the woodland will be monitored. One of the ultimate goals is to determine the feasibility of re-introducing fire into the woodlands; therefore this project is very important in determining the feasibility of the re-introduction of fire.

A Homestead NM partner in this venture is the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) National Network. CESU is a network of collaborative units established to provide research, technical assistance, and education to resource and environmental managers responsible for federal land management, environmental, and research agencies and their potential partners

“Cooperative” emphasizes that multiple federal agencies and universities are among the partners in this program. “Ecosystem Studies” involves the biological, physical, social, and cultural sciences needed to address resource issues and interdisciplinary problem solving at multiple scales and in an ecosystem context. The resources studied encompass both natural and cultural assets.

Homestead National Monument of America is located within the boundary of the Great Plains CESU. The Great Plains CESU is administered by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. However to complete its needed projects Homestead NM of America can work with any research university in the Great Plains CESU or any research university in another CESU.


Links to the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) National Network

http://snr.unl.edu/gpcesu/

http://www.cesu.umn.edu/

http://www.cesu.psu.edu/

FIRST PLOWING

At springtime, the farmer of today always feels a rush of excitement at the start of the planting season. In this excerpt from Prairie Pioneers, a novel written by Emery Stoops (1999, 2003, p. 81) Clint, a pioneer in the Oklahoma strip, feels even a greater excitement. For the first time in this land’s history, it is being plowed.

By February 15, snow from the blizzard had thawed again, and it was time once more to plow sod. Clint gripped the handles of his plow, listened to the clank of metal-tipped tugs transferring power to the hooks of on singletrees, heard the crunch of sod roots and the gentle panting of Nell and Bess as they leaned into their stretching collars with a ton of pressure. He watched a twelve-inch strip of sod rise and curl across the shiny moldboard of his plow and leave a black ribbon of soil that had not seen the sun during the last million years. There was the smell of leather mingled with steamy sweat, dust from dried grass, and the aroma of newly turned soil. Clint felt at one with his universe. The sounds, the sight, the smell, the feel of this turning prairie soothed his determined soul.

"There is something about plowing sod,” Clint said to Lylie that evening, “that just makes me feel terribly good. It wears me out, but it makes me feel…feel so satisfied. It’s like a fish getting back to water. I just feel like I’d always been a sod buster.”

He tried to find words and then continued, “I guess God made us out of soil, and we just long to get back into it”

Check Row Planters

Corn planting has been in full swing. Many modern corn planters plant 16 rows at a time and some of the most modern planters use the Global Positioning System [GPS] technology to keep their rows straight. Technological advances are ever present in agriculture.

About 1890 one of the technological advances was planting corn with a two row check planter which was pulled by horses. This type of planter was manufactured from 1890 to 1941 and was used well into the 1950’s only by then farmers or the manufacturer had converted them to be pulled by tractors.

On Saturday May 17, 2008 the Heritage Center Farm Field at Homestead National Monument was planted to corn using a John Deere two row check planter that had been manufactured between 1908 and 1910. About 20 to 25 people watched as Gary Higgins used his team of horses and two row check planter. Mr. Higgins was assisted by Glen Brinkman and Ranger Jesse Bolli who moved the “trip wire.”

The “trip wire” which has knots in it every 42" was strung across the field. The wire was fed through a lever and rollers which are attached to the planter. When a knot hits the lever, the lever is pushed down and the corn is dropped.

The rows planted by a two row check planter are 42" apart and a hill of corn is planted every 42" with usually 4 or 5 seeds per hill. Cultivating [tilling the soil between the rows to remove the weeds] could occur with the rows and across the rows in a checker board pattern. The rows had to be 42" apart to allow the horse to walk between them to cultivate and harvest. Today, the corn rows are 30" apart.

In order to keep the rows straight a marker arm drags in the dirt creating a furrow to be used to center the planter on for the next trip across the field. Today, a few farmers are using the GPS technology, but most still use the marker arm with a single disc on the end to mark where to go next and keep their rows straight.

The planting that occurred at the Homestead Heritage Center on May 17 took about 2 hours to plant 1 acre of corn. About 10,000 to 15,000 kernels of corn were planted. Modern farmers with 16 row planters, on average, plant about 13 acres in an hour and about 30,000 to 40,000 seeds are planted per acre.

A good yield of corn planted using the two row check planter was about 60 bushel per acre with the average closer to 30 bushels per acre. Today 150 bushels per acre is average with some fields producing over 200 bushel per acre.

The two row check planter was amazing to some in 1890 just as using Global Positioning System technology in planting corn is amazing to some of us today.

In June, if conditions allow, Gary Higgins may be cultivating the corn at Heritage Center Farm Field at Homestead National Monument using his team of horses and late 19th or early 20th century technology. Look for an announcement.