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.