Prairie Reconstruction

We will be starting a prairie reconstruction in Vaughn Prairie #2 management area this year.  What is a prairie reconstruction and is it the same as a prairie restoration?  A restoration starts with a degraded prairie, one that is overrun with invasives, and restores it by removing invasives, perhaps adding a few natives, and implementing prescribed burns.  A reconstruction starts with something other than a prairie, like an old field, and makes a prairie from scratch.  Vaughn Prairie #2 is an old field.  It is the first field on the right, past the ponds,  as you drive toward the Volunteer Management Unit or Bog Birch, where we worked from 2005-2008.

What does starting mean?  Establishing a prairie is a multi-year process.  Most the first year is spent eliminating weeds, the second and third years are spent mowing and it isn't until the third or fourth year that there will be many many obvious prairie plants.  This year we will use the herbicide glyphosate when the weeds are 10" tall, glyphosate again when any regrowth reaches 10" tall, disc to stimulate germination of weed seeds in the soil, and glyphosate again when those weeds reach 10" or at the end of September if they haven't gotten that big by that time.  Glyphosate doesn't persist in the soil so it won't interfere with germination of seeds that are planted after it is used.  In October we can broadcast seeds we have collected this year.  Most prairie plant seeds need a period of cold stratification.  By planting this year's crop of seeds this fall they will be fresh and viable, get cold stratification over the winter, and can germinate in the spring.

I have marked the tentative location with long poles with red flags on top.  The location is near the road for easy access to work on it and for visibility for appreciating it and is in a part of the field dominated by cool season grasses where there aren't many natives.  The area isn't very big but intensive management is necessary to get it off to a good start.  We don't want such a big area that we can't be successfull or that establishing the prairie takes time away from followup in areas of the fen where the large invasives have been removed. 

It would be possible to glyphosate the whole field.  We aren't doing this for two reasons.  First, as mentioned above, it would take too many resources.  Second, there are parts of the field with high  concentrations of native plants and high concentrations of native insects which support native birds.  These plants and insects would be lost if the whole field were herbicided and they would not all come back even if there were enough resources to plant seeds and control the weeds.  Comparing this field now with the reconstructed prairie on Rogers Highway we see that the reconstructed prairie is very scenic and impressive but it is strangely devoid of many insects, even years after planting.

Some prairie plantings use precisely measured quantities and percentages of different species of forbs and grasses.  We are going to take a simpler approach and plant whatever we collect and whatever we like, as long as they are plants native to Lenawee County, preferably collected in Lenawee County.  If you know a favorite prairie plant growing in the county, collect the seeds this year when they are ripe, keep them in a dry place safe from mice, and come out for our planting day in the fall.  White asters, small flowered goldenrod (not Showy Goldenrod or Stiff Goldenrod) and wild bergamot are well established in the rest of the field so we probably don't need any more of those.

All that has been done so far is to mark the location of this prairie, so there is still time to modify our plans.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.  We are starting the prairie project this year so that next year, when the buckthorn is finished, and a few years after that, when the honeysuckle is finished, we will have a prairie to work on.

February Updates

Mike has found an arborist to take down and remove the two big Siberian Elm trees on the south side of the field station lot. They produce thousands of seeds every year and are too big for us to cut down with our chainsaws. We could kill them with drill and fill but when they died and fell down they might hit something they shouldn’t, like the house or the shed or Dave Krueger’s Christmas trees.

Rodolfo, Denny, Sarah, and Mike burned most of the brush piles in Super Sumac. There are some left on the south edge east edges. They plan to burn more when weather permits. We need snow on the ground as a safety factor but not on the piles because that makes it too hard to get them lit.  You can see what the area looks like now in the photo below.

On Thursday Mike and Rodolfo interviewed for a person to work at Ives this summer. There were four candidates.

On Tuesday David Mindell, who owns PlantWise, a commercial restoration company, will visit the fen to check out the area we want to clear with the stimulus funds. We expect that he will be able to clear the north end of the central fen and the south end as far as Property Line Ditch but probably won’t get to Siberian Elmia, which isn’t high priority anyway.

The 30 Delta Airlines employees who were going to come on April 17 have turned into 30 employees each day who will come on April 21-23. They will fly into Detroit in the morning, pull some garlic mustard, eat at the field station, and then pull some more garlic mustard before flying home in the afternoon. Possible areas for them to work are the north end of the floodplain forest where we work every year, the areas north and south of the path behind the field station, the area near Sutton Road where we cut honeysuckle the first Saturday in June last year, and the area across the river where the Heartleaf Skullcap grows. I will scout out the potential areas a few days before they get here. We might work two areas each day since we will be eating lunch at the field station.

We are still expecting an Americorps crew from the end of March to the beginning of June, mainly to help with prescribed burns, follow-up on the areas cleared by David Mindell, and do some torch burns.

Rodolfo hired Sarah Cech to work with him and Denny at Grand River this summer. She is from Ohio and is spending the week in Jackson while she is working here.

Ten Ohio State students are coming to Ives for alternate break from June 12-19. They will mainly be working at Grand River but we can probably get them for a day if we want to do a weekday workday.

Circle K is signed up for honeysuckle cutting on March 20.

We might cut honeysuckle on March 13. I see a 40° in the forecast for next week and hopefully it the weather will be OK the week after that.

We will have a display at Tecumseh Earth Day on April 17.

Planted Prairie vs. Fallow Field

At Ives Road Fen Preserve we have about 30 acres of planted prairie and 73 acres of former agricultural fields. The prairie had all weeds and other plants that were growing there eliminated with glyphosate before planting an assortment of prairie plant seeds. It has had several burns and extensive hand pulling of weeds. It has few invasives. The old agricultural field I did this comparison with has had most of the volunteer tree seedlings removed but no burns, no plantings other than a few oak seedlings this year, and minimal weeding. It has many alien plants, including spotted knapweed, sweet clover, common mullein, Queen Ann's Lace, toadflax, exotic grasses, and St. John's Wort.

On a sunny afternoon with a temperature of 74˚, I drove in, counted butterflies I could see from the track, then walked in 100 paces, counting additional butterflies I saw as I walked in. I used butterflies as a surrogate for all wildlife because they are easy to see, easy to identify, and present in numbers suitable for counting. Here are the results:

Common Sulphur: Two in the field, one in the prairie.

Cabbage White: Four in the field, two in the prairie.

Small moth: Four in the field, one in the prairie.

Monarch: None in the field, one in the prairie.

Pearl Crescent: Four in the field, none in the prairie.

Orange Sulphur: Two in the field, none in the prairie.

Praying Mantis: None in the field during the count but one seen later, one in the prairie.

Grasshopppers: Hundreds in the field, none in the prairie.

Birds: One sparrow in the field, one in the prairie.

Conclusion: The fallow field supports a greater variety and number of native animals than the planted prairie.

Reasons: The fallow field probably has a greater number of plant species than the planted prairie. The last prairie planting that Tom did had 65 species. There are over 700 plant species on the preserve. Not all of them are in the field but there are probably a lot more than 65. When the field was in crops it had no natives but remnant natives from the edges of the field, woods, railroad tracks and pastures have had time to recolonize. The plants in the field are more common plants than the ones planted in the prairie. Common plants are more likely to support many insects than uncommon plants. The seeds in the prairie all came from Lenawee County but if the insects they supported are miles away they will never get here. Identifying and moving the insects that depend on them is not a good use of resources.

Recommendations: If we have a bare field that just finished being cropped then planting uncommon showy prairie plants is good because it will accelerate its return to natural status and give us more diversity. If it has been out of crops for years and has asters, goldenrods and wild bergamot spread across it, it should only be overseeded, not glyphosated and started from the beginning. Spot removal of invasives by spraying or hand pulling would be fine.

Further research: There are many opportunities for student research projects on this topic. The count area and time could be defined more precisely. Counts could be done at different times of the year. More species could be counted. Species other than butterflies could be counted. An analysis could be done on what insects are supported by the plant species present or what plants are utilized by the insect species present. The role of fire on insect populations could be examined. Why are there no grasshoppers in the prairie?

Naming the Creeks

Up until now we have been referencing our position in the Tom Turkey management area by referring to one of the many creeks than run through it. We have crossed enough creeks now that you would have to refer to the previous reports to try to figure out which one we are at now. To more precisely identify them we will try numbering them as follows:

Creek#1: This is the first creek north of the path below the field station to the river and was roughly where the UM students worked cleared honeysuckle to in January.

Creek#2: This is the creek below which we cleaned out the rest of the honeysuckle on the August Ford workday and some of our first weekday workdays. It is almost directly below our second base camp.

Creek#3: In the area south of this creek we had two base camps, saw the rattlesnake, temporarily lost an applicator, and Russell cut down the big Common Buckthorn.

Creek#4: This creek is below the base camp where our seats are ash tree trunks. The area south of it had the huge four-trunked honeysuckle, the green Gray Tree Frog, and the bee hive in the tree trunk we sat next to for our first break on September 2 (we moved the break area after we noticed the bees). We built one brush pile in this creek to slow down erosion and because it is easier to throw branches down into the creek than up onto a pile and the branches should rot faster if the bottom ones are sitting in water. With no salmon runs, I don't think there will be any ecological damage.

These creeks do not run all the way from the the field to the river but start somewhere below the slope and get wider and deeper as they approach the river.

Russell will decide whether to delineate these creeks on the maps and whether to devise more interesting names. I suppose he could name them after volunteers, i.e. Katie's Creek, Karla's Creek, Bob's Brook, Sam's Stream, Russell's Rivulet. If you have a better name for any of them, make a comment.

Lifetime Handles

The fiberglass handles on our Corona compound action loppers eventually weaken and break. In the past we had no way to repair them so the cutting jaws were thrown out and the handles were recycled as stakes to mark plantings.

Now we are experimenting with using aluminum pipe to replace the handles. The first step in the modification is to drill out or grind off the end of the rivet which holds the original handles on, then use a long punch to punch it out. The smaller pipe fits over the cutting jaw extension but since the pipe is hollow and cylindrical and the extension is flat, it does not fit tightly. This is resolved by shaping some half round wood molding to fit in the pipe on either side of the extension. Lacking precise forming equipment, the wood will either be slightly large, in which case it can be hammered in, or a little loose, in which case it can be dipped in water, then coated with Gorilla Glue just before insertion. Gorilla glue expands and dries to a dense foam which will fill the gaps and hold it in place. 6mm holes are drilled in the wood after it is inserted and bolts are then used to replace the rivets which formerly held the handles on.

The larger pipe fits over the black end of the handle. The OD of the handle is 1.50 inches and the ID of the pipe is 1.49 inches so some material on the end of the handle has to be ground off. It is a hard rubbery material. I used a drill press with a cylindrical, flat end 6mm diameter silicon carbide bur from McMaster-Carr. Drilling holes in the pipe exactly opposite each other and at exactly the right distance from the end to line up with the holes in the handle was beyond my technology. The bur was used to adjust the pipe holes in the proper direction for the bolt to work. The big pipe seems to be tight but if it later loosens up we will use Gorilla Glue for it also. Red electrical tape is wrapped around the handle to make it more visible and artistic.

The first modified lopper has one big pipe and one small pipe. The smaller pipe is lighter and cheaper but not as strong. If it turns out to be strong enough it will be used for future repairs. If it breaks we will use the larger pipe. Heavy duty fiberglass reinforced plastic pipe was investigated but it was heavier and more expensive than the large aluminum pipe.

The pipes were ordered from OnlineMetals.com, the same place we get the aluminum angle for upgrading the cutters. They have pipes of different diameters, wall thicknesses, and materials and they give the detailed dimensions. If you want a high tech lopper and need to get rid of a lot of money, you could order brass, stainless steel or titanium pipes.

Working in The Rain

We had a rainy day on Saturday but we cut buckthorn and honeysuckle and herbicided anyway.

One reason people don't herbicide in the rain is that they think the herbicide will get washed off. If you are using herbicide with surfactant, in accordance with the label, and apply it as soon as the cut is made, it will soak in almost immediately and once it has soaked in it cannot wash off. The photo shows stumps that we herbicided on Saturday morning when it was raining. On Saturday afternoon it rained hard. The photo was taken on Sunday morning. You can tell from the dye that the herbicide did not wash off.





The other concern about herbiciding in the rain is that the sponge will get soaked with rain and then you will be applying water instead of herbicide. This can be prevented by keeping a cover on the sponge until you are ready to use it. We use covers made from bottled water containers. If you don't drink bottled water yourself you can get empties from the side of the road, parking lots, or open trash containers.


A possible research project would be to quantify how much rain it would take to reduce herbicide effectiveness. It would be a two year project since it would take until the second year to see how many resprouts there were. The first year would consist of designing the experiment, applying herbicide in various amounts of rain and marking the stumps. In the second year the resprouts would be counted, a statistical analysis done, and conclusions and recommendations determined.


Cut stump treatment is different from foliar spray since the herbicide soaks into the wood very quickly and takes from an hour to up to 24 hours to fully soak into foliage.

Coyote Hot Date Site

This scratched up sand is on the shore of West Lake. Since it has large canine footprints it may be a sign of coyotes. When a female is in proestrus her urine becomes increasingly attractive to the male. He will sniff intensively over an area she has just urinated in, then urinate over it and scrape the ground vigorously with his paws. The urination/scraping behavior continues with increasing frequency until the female comes into heat for two to five days sometime between mid January and late March. Once the female chooses a partner they may remain paired for a number of years.

Gestation lasts from 60 to 63 days. Litter size averages 6. The young are born blind, limp-eared and pug-nosed. Three to four weeks after birth, the young begin to emerge from the den and by 35 days they are fully weaned. They are fed regurgitated food by both parents. Male pups disperse from the dens in the fall while females stay with the parents and form the basis for the pack.