by Bill Kleiman

Much of the nation was sweltering this week and so were we in Windom Minnesota with around 70 who gathered. We had folks from the North Star State, and Illinois, Nebraska, Indiana, the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin and David from Texas. We visited four good sites, two each day. There was a lot of sharing of lessons learned during the day, and during meals and in the evenings. We are passionate about our work and like to talk details.

Kudos to Jeff Zajac who was the host in chief. He had a bunch of helpers with Cathy Forstner doing logistics and Chad August, Brian Nyborg, Bill Schuna, Shon Thelen and Kent Schaap who did the on site work and most of the mapping. 

We said we would share some links to things that came up. One is the video Jeff mentioned of Rich Henderson talking about Rich’s decades long work on a prairie. https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/SyT3C4xv28hWkYVkhO4UPy?domain=youtube.com

We talked about the benefits of monitoring. Quadrats are the gold standard, but a walking survey of what plants are seen and an indication of abundance does a lot of good. Juli Mason has a short video where she explains her method https://grasslandrestorationnetwork.org/2020/08/03/rapid-assessment-monitoring-a-video/ The Prairie Reconstruction Initiative also has a monitoring protocol. https://sites.google.com/view/prairiereconinitiative/what-we-do/monitoring-protocol

We talked about weed management and noted that as in real estate, the location of your preserve is important. An invasive weed in damp Illinois may be only a nuisance in mid-Nebraska. Most every one agreed that Canada thistle reduces as a prairie planting gets going. We Illinoisans were noting that the Windom Minnesota prairies had little brush whereas our prairies want to turn to shrublands.

We also discussed seeds, purchasing vs harvesting seed ourselves. Prescribed fire operations, fire frequency, smoke issues, and seasonal timing. Minnesota has their awesome sales tax that fills the Outdoor Heritage Fund. Good stuff.

This GRN blog site is a welcome venue to share your lessons learned. Click on the “Follow the GRN” for our weekly emails of lessons learned. Each blog post has search tags added. One tag is the author of the article and another is the topic. So people searching will find your good works. Just email Bill your ideas at bkleiman@ tnc.org.

Jeff Zajac closed by encouraging us to do our best conservation. That the next generation will take forward what we learn now and what we do now, just as we carry forward the good works from the generation before us.