The Potential of Pastures and Oak Woods

by theprairieenthusiasts-admin | Oct 4, 2022 | News

If you have an old field that you would like to plant to prairie or a stand of oak you would like to restore, don’t rush into it. Understand the history of the land and take time to observe and learn whether anything important remains. Very often degraded lands still harbor irreplaceable elements of biodiversity, and these have their own stories to tell about what a place was and could be. The tools we use in restoration can encourage these elements or extinguish them. By recognizing and preserving remnant populations of native species and their genes, we can counteract biotic homogenization[i], and sometimes we can reduce project complexity and expense in the process.

Many landowners with prairie planting projects in old fields or retired pastures already have important elements of the biodiversity they are trying to restore, many of which are commercially unavailable. Occasionally remnant populations of rare plants persist. Even areas that were formerly cultivated often support good prairie, savanna, and oak woodland species that have recolonized from the edges, or perhaps a neighboring oak savanna that has since become forest. In many cases as many desirable native species remain as would be required for a seed mix planted under a cost-share program! I have included a table with upland species often encountered in old fields and pastures; there are many more. It is not uncommon to encounter five to fifteen of these species in an old field and ten to twenty of them in a retired pasture.

In cases where there are some good things present, start by managing these areas as though they were still prairie. Selectively control encroaching woody vegetation and any patches of broad-leaved herbaceous weeds. Burn for a couple consecutive years during the dormant season to encourage anything good that might be suppressed by the thatch. See what happens and go from there, which will usually mean integrating inter-seeding, a lot of burning, and patience.

Many landowners with wooded ground have land that was once oak woodland, oak savanna, or oak barrens. Oak woodlands are conservation-worthy and rare, but they are sometimes mistaken for forests or inappropriately treated as savannas[i] or barrens. It is far more common to encounter structurally intact ground layer vegetation in heretofore unrestored woodlands than open savannas. In oak woodlands, good cover of Pennsylvania sedge or dry-spiked sedge often remains, and species that tend to favor dappled light vs. deep shade or full sun—poke milkweed, pale vetchling, yellow pimpernel, broad-leaved panic-grass, bearded shorthusk, purple Joe-pye weed, Carolina vetch, etcetera—are often still present. Even where oak woodlands have become shadier, that change has usually been more gradual and less in degree than in savannas. This has allowed more of the woodland vegetation to hang on.  Where a low sedgy or grassy ground layer remains, restoration might only involve modest brush work, removal non-oak understory hardwoods, non-oak overstory thinning/girdling, restoration of fire, and modest inter-seeding of missing species over time. Savanna restoration is critically important where true opportunities still exist, but good opportunities to restore oak woodland seem to be more common than savanna.

If you have an open area of cool-season grass or a stand of oak, I encourage you to take a closer look. You might discover there is more opportunity, or a different opportunity, than you initially thought. If you are looking for cost-share, go shopping for assistance that helps to build on what remains. Doing so should result in projects that conserve more community, species, and genetic diversity on the landscape.

Rich Henderson’s presentation “Converting Pasture to Prairie” on YouTube is an excellent resource.

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i- Biotic homogenization is the process by which spatially separate ecological communities become more similar over time as the result of extinctions and invasions (or introductions).

ii- I use ‘savanna’ here in place of ‘oak opening’ for relatively open communities with mostly widely spaced, open-grown oak trees with prairie vegetation in-between.

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‘P’ used for species more often found in pastures than old fields

[i] I use ‘savanna’ here in place of ‘oak opening’ for relatively open communities with mostly widely spaced, open-grown oak trees with prairie vegetation in-between.

What Guides You on Your Journey?

by theprairieenthusiasts-admin | Jul 19, 2022 | News

For thousands of years, the people who lived here shared a common set of values across diverse cultures, languages, and lifeways: a deep sense of relationship with the land and its living things, respect for all the members of that community, a desire for reciprocity and balance, and responsibility to future generations. Their active care, through fire and other means, built and maintained over time a beautifully open and richly diverse landscape where everyone could thrive.

Those who colonized here from elsewhere in the world beginning in the 1600’s clearly did not share those same values, at least with respect to the land. They tended to view land and its many resources as property to be used as its owners saw fit. They worked hard to make the land productive, and we have all benefited in our current lifestyles from their centuries of labor.

However, by the mid-Twentieth Century, some visionaries began to see that there was something deeply wrong with this attitude about our relationship with the land. Aldo Leopold, in his Sand County Almanac, described the natural communities he loved beginning to disappear and laid out a set of values he called the “Land Ethic” as a way forward. John Curtis, in his Vegetation of Wisconsin, scientifically documented those communities down to their species composition, giving us important tools to identify and perhaps restore them. Rachel Carson, in her Silent Spring, made clear in a heart-rending way how our modern technologies could subtly but certainly destroy the animals and plants we most cherish.

Almost 50 years ago, inspired by those visionaries and others, a few small groups of young men and women began to seek out the last remnants of the prairies and oak savannas that had once dominated much of our upper Midwest landscape. Where they could, they began to cut away the encroaching brush and trees, plant rare seeds collected from other remnants, and, most importantly, rekindle the use of prescribed fire. No one paid them to do this – it was a labor of love to restore these tiny but exquisite islands of “biodiversity” (a term then recently coined).

Over time these local groups grew and had some success. Eventually, they came to understand it was not enough to just restore and manage these treasured remnants – they also had to be permanently protected and cared for by future generations. That required more financial, legal, and organizational resources than any one local group had. They also were learning fast, both from the infant science of restoration ecology and from their own hands-on experiences. They realized that by coming together regionally they could share both resources and knowledge to make what they were doing sustainable. However, they also knew that their dedicated communities of land stewards are intensely rooted in place. Thus, The Prairie Enthusiasts, with its structure of local volunteer chapters, was born.

Today that seed that was planted two generations ago has grown into an organization with 11 chapters in three states, almost 50 preserves protected through ownership or conservation easement, over $12 million in assets, and a volunteer membership of well over a thousand, served by a growing professional support staff. Many of our first generation of pioneering leaders have passed away or are retiring from the field, and even our second-generation leaders (myself included) are beginning to think about handing off the torch. Despite all this impressive history and growth, all of us in TPE believe that our work in the world is only just beginning and will become even more important as time goes on.

At this critical point in our history, as we consider once more how to sustain ourselves into the future, the Board of Directors, under the leadership of Executive Director Debra Behrens, undertook to develop a set of core values for TPE. The goal was to articulate what most essentially defines who we really are as an organization, what we cherish, how we behave, and how we make decisions together. Even though they have been mostly unstated, our core values have guided us on our journey so far. By making them clear to all, they can help inspire and guide those who will continue this journey after us.

As developed and approved by the Board, these are the core values of The Prairie Enthusiasts:

• Rooted in reverence for the Land
  All that we are, and everything we do is deeply rooted in our love and respect for the Land – the communities of soils, water, plants, animals, and other living things of which we are a part.
• Long view
  The origins of the land are ancient. We are stewards of the present – the legacy entrusted to our care. Our actions shape what is possible for future generations.
• Working together
  We are responsible for caring for the land. Everyone has a unique ability to contribute. By working together, we form bonds that make our community stronger than ourselves.
• Sharing knowledge
  We honor wisdom and experience, science and the arts. We are seekers and teachers, sharing what we have learned and encouraging others to build on it.

I for one am very proud to be part of an organization based on these core values. Let me know what you think at sfulton@theprairieenthusiasts.org.

Empire-Sauk Chapter December Update

by theprairieenthusiasts-admin | Dec 14, 2021 | News

Small seeds planted lead to bigger things. At the end of June, Ian Michel, an employee from Diederich Tree Care LLC participated in a tour of Moely Prairie led by the stewardship team of Amy & Rick Chamberlin, Paul Anderson, and Brandon Mann. Apparently, Ian was impressed enough to report back to the owner of the company, Slater Diederich, that there were exciting things happening out on the prairie. Soon afterwards we were approached by Slater with an offer of a days’ worth of work pro bono to assist our efforts. After some internal discussion and meeting with Slater in person, we decided that removal of a large, declining cottonwood tree at Schluckebier Sand Prairie and a few smaller trees leaning heavily across the south boundary at Moely Prairie would fit the bill for a days’ worth of work. 

Fast forward to October 27 when the crew arrived to accomplish the first phase, taking down the large Cottonwood tree at Schluckebier. Diederich Tree Care arrived with a crew of four, trucks, trailers, a brush chipper, and a skid steer for the task at hand and within a few, efficient hours had felled, limbed, and cut the tree. Not only that, they agreed to haul the trunk to two different offsite locations for use as firewood. The prairie was left in excellent shape. Phase 2 is planned for a later date at Moely. A big thank you to Diederich Tree Care LLC for their community involvement and work to improve our two precious Sauk Prairie remnants!

See the video of the Cottonwood coming down on our Facebook page. 

Photos by Diederich Tree Care LLC

Reaction to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources State Natural Area [SNA] Strategy

by theprairieenthusiasts-admin | Dec 7, 2021 | News

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources recently published A State Natural Area [SNA] Strategy(1). Here I discuss one aspect of the Strategy that I applaud—the development of a formal procedure for SNA withdrawal. This is something that the conservation community needs to be talking about more. Challenges facing natural areas are increasing and changing, and some have already lost the characteristics that first merited their designation. Climate change is exerting pressure on natural communities, but passive neglect is a clear, if not dominant problem for natural communities that are fire-dependent. Frequently burned and otherwise well-stewarded sites are holding up quite well despite our present climate already departing significantly from what it was 200 years ago. Ignoring degradation of sites suffering from fire exclusion and general lack of stewardship only misleads the public and misrepresents what natural areas are. Our SNAs should be the places where we take ourselves and others on pilgrimage to receive inspiration that our best prairies, savannas, woodlands, forests, and wetlands freely give. This is fundamental to why many of us who work and/or volunteer in conservation do what we do. That inspiration has the power to compel others to join us in having a more reciprocal relationship to the land.

Franklin Savanna SNA in Milwaukee County is a good example of a site that could be considered for withdrawal. It was designated based on a regionally unique opportunity to restore mesic oak savanna that still had some persistent prairie- and savanna-associated species. However, little has been done to restore the savanna, and it continues to deteriorate. Most of its acreage presently consists of dense buckthorn under declining bur oaks with sparse ground layer vegetation dominated by weedy species. There is no fire. Franklin Savanna is certainly not a place I would take someone to show them mesic savanna. Tragically, there is not such a place in southern Wisconsin.  

Franklin Savanna SNA (left) in Milwaukee County is a good example of a site that could be considered for withdrawal. Pleasant Valley Conservancy (center) and Black Earth Rettenmund (right) are examples of well-stewarded sites whose condition is being maintained – Photos by Dan Carter

There are other SNAs that might one day soon be considered for withdrawal, though their cases are generally less extreme. I am most familiar with SNAs near where I live southeastern Wisconsin. Karcher Springs and New Munster Bog Island SNAs (2) still retain a lot of their native biodiversity but they will continue to deteriorate without increased sustained stewardship. Cudahy Woods remains diverse for its urban location, but emerald ash borer has cut a swath right through the heart of it, and invasive species are proliferating at the expense of a rich spring flora. These places could lose much of what made them exceptional, at least regionally, within a decade or two.  

None of this is to say that sites should be abandoned, even if some ultimately have SNA designations withdrawn. This is especially true where resources could be put into action. Franklin Savanna could be a very fine mesic savanna in thirty years’ time. If it were, mesic savanna inspiration would no longer require a road trip down to the Chicago suburbs. Bringing that inspiration closer to more people in the Milwaukee area would be a worthy effort that would extend beyond the site itself. 

It hurts to recognize that we are still losing even legally protected natural areas when we’ve already lost so much. Acknowledging this can be downright politically fraught, so I’ll reiterate my applause of the Strategy for putting words on paper. 

One group that gives us hope is the newly-formed Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves – read all about them here, and on Stephen Packard’s blog, Strategies for Stewards: from woods to prairies. 

Dan Carter, Landowner Services Coordinator

[1] https://widnr.widen.net/s/zjhgzqvqdr/nh0401_lowres

[2] The island is noted for its yellow birch in a southerly location, but arguably what is more notable about it is that it also supports a unique example southern-dry mesic forest, which unlike most southern dry-mesic forests in its region doesn’t appear to simply be the result of hickory and black cherry colonizing oak savanna or oak woodland, and which unlike most upland sites in its region is minimally impacted by a history of continuous cattle grazing.