It was a big year of restoration at Swain Prairie and Upper Walnut Prairie in Blue Mound State Park. In February, Adaptive Restoration LLC was awarded a 3-year contract for actively restoring these areas. During the first month we took stock of the condition of the prairies and worked with the Friends, Park staff, and ecologists at the DNR to design and coordinate the spring prescribed burns. Adaptive Restoration also donated a burn of the Pool Prairie. The April burns went well and within a couple weeks volunteers were able to head afield to broadcast native prairie seed in each of the prairies.
With the foundational work of a prescribed burn and interseeding natives complete, we waited for the growing season to evaluate and manage the volume and abundance of brushy resprouts and herbaceous weeds in the two prairies.
Each prairie had significant brushy resprouts of dogwood, sumac, walnut, mulberry, and elderberry. Regular fire will largely accomplish the eventual removal or thinning of these woody species, albeit over a decadal time scale given the below-ground establishment of these species following a number of years without fire or management. In the meantime, these species over-top and crowd out native prairie vegetation if not addressed by direct management. Therefore it is often worth the effort to cut and/or spray these resprouts that return following fire.
In addition to resprouts, we also began to observe and treat large patches of crown vetch (much worse in Swain), birdsfoot trefoil, sweetclover (worse in Upper Walnut), spotted knapweed, wild parsnip (not nearly as bad as we’d thought it would be), ragweed, and reed canary grass (just a couple smallish patches in both prairies). We used herbicide (Intensity for areas of reed canary grass and Method for areas of crown vetch) at times, and always judiciously so as to minimize friendly fire on beneficial native plants. This is a hard line to toe as anyone who has wielded a spray pack will recognize, but the intent and strategy is to set back or kill the weedy species (that have lent to lower biodiversity) and to provide a toe-hold for nearby native plants to re-colonize the newly available habitat (and increase the biodiversity of that zone). When weeds have been left unchecked for a handful of years, they build seed banks and underground reserves depending on their life history strategies (annual, perennial, biannual), so often their management is a multi-year effort. Don’t worry, we’ll be back out there again in the coming years!
Following the massive growing season, we began collecting native seed with volunteers and felling trees and brush that had invaded the prairies. A few spectacular patches of Liatrus spicata (blazing star) were thick this year (and could be seen from the road by anyone with sharp eyes in late summer), and we were able to collect much of its seed for subsequent work in these prairies. Any time there’s disturbance (fire, mechanical, chemical), there’s an opportunity for interseeding more species.
Next time you’re rounding the bend as you leave the town of Blue Mounds and head to the Park, you’ll note that Upper Walnut is looking much more like a prairie than it did this time last year. Likewise, if you can find the time to enjoy a hike, bike, or ski out to Swain in the coming years. Last year alone there were approximately 240,000 visitors to the Park. Even if 1% of those folks (2,400) took note of the beauty of these prairies, we’re on our way to more folks facilitating more native, functioning and intact prairie on our landscape.
Notably, six volunteer restoration events for a total of 68 volunteer hours were contributed to the effort throughout the year. There were between 4 and 10 volunteers at each event broadcasting prairie seed, cutting brush, pulling weeds or collecting seed depending on the time of year.
Adaptive Restoration would like to thank the Friends as well as the staff at Blue Mounds State Park for working with us to restore these prairies for the benefit of biodiversity and welfare of nature in our neighborhood.
Kindly,
Dave Laufenberg, M.S.
Ecologist with Adaptive Restoration
