Wild Parsnip. Is it invasive or just a weed?

Posted on December 19, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Bill Kleiman, The Nature Conservancy at Nachusa Grasslands

Pastinaca sativa, wild parsnip lives two years, with flower and seed set on year two. Every June you will find us mowing it somewhere on the preserve, as this is when they are in full flower.   We also use our weed spades to cut the root which looks like a carrot.  Before the flower stalk bolts a broadleaf herbicide is effective.

Parsnip does not compete well in prairie plantings or prairie remnants, except where the vegetation has been disturbed by some past issue, like brush encroachment.  Parsnip does well in low competition areas where past disturbance has left a simple plant community.  We mowed a bush honeysuckle thicket several years previously and it filled with wild parsnip a few years later.   I sprayed a pasture to reduce brush and a few years later there was the parsnip.

There are various weeds we put some effort into in case their small populations might increase if left alone.  Weeds like parsnip, king devil, butter and eggs.  You may have such a list.  Then there are weeds that are everywhere, like the exotic cool season grasses, so we shrug our shoulders and don’t attempt to control them.

Our resources are limited so we manage what we need to, and not more.

Here is a link to some resources on invasive weeds:

https://www.nachusagrasslands.org/managing-invasive-plants.html

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Prescribed fire pumper units

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

by Bill Kleiman, The Nature Conservancy, Nachusa Grasslands

At Nachusa Grasslands we use several vehicle mounted water sprayers on our fires.  We call them “pumper units”.  Photo above is a crew about to start their test ignition.   You don’t see backpack water sprayers as most crew are assigned to a pumper unit.

The pumps we use are piston pumps because they use a small amount of water per minute and produce a high pressure.   These work well for our grass and leaf litter fires and are common in the Midwest.

Centrifugal pumps are the standard on wildfire crews you see across the nation.  Centrifugal pumps typically produce modest pressure, and can pump a lot of gallons per minute. This is good in that you may knock down an escaping fire with all that water output, and bad in that you may run out of water before that escape is extinguished.

Below is one of our units.  Note rake strapped at an angle such that it does not hit you in the head when you start the pump motor.  Our name is on the rake so we get it back at the end of the day.  The hose is yellow so you see it in the grass. The hose is a narrow diameter so it is light weight to maneuver easily.  The drip torch holders are made from wood painted black. The laundry detergent bottle in the box is filled with Class A foam.  “Add two caps of foam” says the print on the side of the tank fill.  And it all fits in the bed with the tailgate up.  The tank is 70 gallons which is about ten gallons too heavy.

Our water tender is a 425 gallon tank with a high flow centrifugal pump mounted in a truck. It is to fill all the other pumpers in the field and carry extra tools.

I wrote up a short summary of pumper units designs: https://www.illinoisprescribedfirecouncil.org/uploads/1/0/5/8/105892833/pumper_unit_design_suggestions_2019_bk.pdf

 

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The Way of the Warrior Sedges

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Kevin Scheiwiller of Citizens for Conservation

As many practitioners know, wetlands can be one of the most frustrating and resource demanding areas to restore. Countless wetland plantings have shown a large flush in native diversity in the first few years just to be overrun by the seed bank of the “wetland thugs;” cattails, reed canary grass, and phragmites. At Citizens for Conservation, we had left most of our wetlands alone for this reason. That was until we enlisted the help of the warrior sedges.

Who are the warrior sedges? These 10 species of Carex were hand selected based on their tendency to be able to withstand invasion by the wetland thugs in the few remaining local remnant wetlands. They are all highly rhizomatous species, that when planted in a focused manner can create a tight native matrix strong enough to keep out the invasion of the wetland thugs.

So what? Why replace one monoculture with another? We have found that while these warrior sedge matrices are dense enough to keep out the thugs, they are not inhibiting the growth of other native wetland species such as Sneezeweed, Monkey Flower, Mad-Dog Skullcap, Blue Flag Iris, and others. All these wetland associates have coevolved for millennia and still seem to understand how to grow together.

The hardened restoration ecologist will wonder how long this wetland planting will keep out the wetland thugs. Time will be the true test, but after a decade of using this technique we have been able to reclaim pothole wetlands and a long stretch of streambank. All of which requires a very small amount of maintenance after year three of this method.

For a detailed explanation of the process see “The Way of the Warriors.” https://www.nachusagrasslands.org/uploads/5/8/4/6/58466593/the_way_of_the_warriors.pdf 

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Planting prairie #97 with the full monty

Posted on November 28, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Bill Kleiman, The Nature Conservancy

The photo above is from this season of  a 2010 planting, our 97th at Nachusa Grasslands.  There is a lot of gayfeather and white indigo. Harder to see are the thimbleweed, coreopsis, lupine, various sedges and grasses.  It looks great but Cody and I  thought it might turn out dull.

The well drained silt loam soils were planted with hay from 2000 to 2005, then converted back to corn until we planted the field to prairie in 2010.

We were concerned that the seeds and roots of the hay field were going to show up and swamp our prairie seeds.  We discussed only planting seed from combined prairies.  This would have been easy to obtain but lower diversity.

We ended up deciding to plant the full monty of hand harvested seed.  We  planted 134 species at 50 pounds per acre of bulk weight of seed. This weight includes chaff and stems.

This is in our Stonebarn Savanna unit. Here is a link to the planting summary we wrote back in 2010.  It has the species lists, techniques used, map, soil map, etc.:

http://www.nachusagrasslands.org/uploads/5/8/4/6/58466593/planting_97_-_2010_-_tellabs_prairie_east_and_west_-_tellabs_prairie_savanna_unit_-_crew_-_c_considine_and_k_schmidt.pdf

 

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Propagating false toadflax, Comandra umbellata

Posted on November 21, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

by Bernie Buchholz, Steward at Nachusa Grasslands

Bastard toad flax (Comandra umbellata) is a hemi-parasitic plant prominent in most of the remnant prairies at Nachusa Grasslands.  It is known to lightly parasitize most all of its neighbors.  Despite collecting thousands of seed over the past 20+ years, we have had virtually no germination in our plantings.  We tried every imaginable combination of scarifying and stratifying, various planting depths and addition of soil from existing stems.

We decided to try a genetic rescue.  We’d move pollen from one population more than a mile to the receiving population and hope the resulting seeds would germinate.  The biggest challenge is that Comandra flowers are a few millimeters across.

With high precision tweezers under a microscope my wife harvested tiny pollen bearing anthers.  She then delivered it to the stigma of the receiving flowers that had been previously bagged with nylon netting to prevent the regular pollinators – flies and small bees – from beating us to it.  I held each stem against the wind, and she dabbed the stigmas with pollen, carefully avoiding the five surrounding anthers.

We’ll soon collect the resulting fruits, plant them, and hope to see seedlings next Spring.  In the meantime, the Chicago Botanic Gardens is looking for mycorrhizae associations among the various populations and a separate genetic analysis to determine if the Comandra is all part of a mammoth clone or distinct populations that we might cross pollinate.

2005 crew at Nachusa who collected Commandra and Stipa.

Update: Our limited experiment of twenty-five transfers yielded only a single fruit. But Emma Leavens, the researcher from Chicago Botanic Gardens, subsequently determined that some of our Comandra populations are significantly different genetically from others. We will use that information next year to select the most promising matches for cross pollination when we try a larger sample.

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Baseline vegetation survey linked to photos

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By Bill Kleiman

For a recently protected tract I developed a baseline vegetation protocol that seems doable, statistically sound, understandable, and visual.

First I created numbered sequential random points.  There is a way to get GIS to randomize these points but I learned that later.  What I did was lay this aerial photo over a piece of cardboard and used a pin to make random holes.  Then I used GIS to enter the points by eye.

Then the team uploaded this map to Avenza maps app on our tablet.

The survey team walked to where they were hovering over each point on the tablet.  They placed a meter square quadrat and recorded species and cover.

Then they took a photo looking down and a photo looking north.  We used a range pole with numbered tags.  Example photo below.

Here is a link to a summary of the first baseline we did using this protocol:  https://www.middlerockconservationpartners.org/vegetation-baseline-survey.html

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Seed drier

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

by Bill Kleiman, Nachusa Grassland Project Director

Updated April 2025

At Nachusa we hand harvest with scissors and buckets several thousand pounds of seed from a few hundred species of plants.  When we bring in our seed it typically needs some time to dry so it does not mold.  We have found that blowing in a small amount of air into a barrel of damp seed will dry it out quickly.  We have 51 drier tubes to dry 51 barrels of seed at one time!

This system is on its second year and we like it so I made a document if you want to build your own.  We placed this document about in 2020 on NachusaGrasslands.org in the Stewardship tab at https://www.nachusagrasslands.org/seed-drier.html

But I will add some photos below that I took in 2025 that might help you build one.

An HVAC contractor can easily install the dryer duct. Note we hung the rack high so you don’t hit your head. We mounted the duct more towards the back to be less in the way.  Hang more tubes than you think you need as they will all be use at high seed season.  

This “PVC 1.5″ extension tube solvent” proved handy. My HVAC contractor bought us a box of them. Note that they flare out a touch on both ends. We cut the tube in the middle.

By coincidence, one half slides inside the black pipe snug enough to not require a clamp. The black tubed is suction hose used on central vacuum systems. You can buy 100 foot rolls of this online. The tube is smooth on the inside which means it won’t whistle as it would if the ridges were on the inside. We tried cheaper sump pump hose but it whistled crazy loud.

The other half of the white PVC slides into the top of the hose. Here we used a hose clamp. The flared end is inside the metal duct. The hole in the duct is drilled just the right size so the flared end supports the tube. Your contractor will have drill bits to make these holes fast. You want to dangle a lot of hose.

The reason for the flared PVC piece previously seen is that is slides into this drier stick fitting. This allow the black drier tube to quickly attach to the barrel of seed to be dried. The drier stick is what goes in the empty barrel that you will dump your damp seed into. This is standard 1.25″ PVC. I purchased the 5 way fitting at bottom online. Glue the pieces together and drill a lot of holes in them to move the air.

 

The fan I ended up using on this system has the motor inside the squirrel cage fan which helps keep the motor cool. This is important because the fan runs a 24/7, not on and off like on your home HVAC. This model is a Dayton 1XJY1 1/2 hp 1060 RPM 115V Furnace Blower. About $500

Total cost for fan $500 , metal duct installed $600, say 200 feet central vacuum hose $800, and $300 for pvc fittings and pipe. Total is $2,200.

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2019 Illinois Prescribed Fires Summary

Posted on October 31, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

July 2018 through June 2019

Summary of Illinois Prescribed Fires Accomplished

By Bill Kleiman with map work of Dave Holman

Our Fire Council map of Illinois Prescribed Fires Accomplished highlights our fire community on one interactive map.

Below, the speckles on Illinois are our fires last year.

Below is a view of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County.  Red is the most recent fires.

A fire crew of Forest Preserve District of Cook County

Our annual summary of all fires accomplished, is on the Illinois Prescribed Fire Council website at https://www.illinoisprescribedfirecouncil.org/annual-data-summary.html

 

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Adding seed

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

by Stephen Packard

[Editor’s note:  For four decades Stephen Packard has been restoring a wide variety of sites.  His comments are notable, and blogposts are great.  I had asked Stephen for advice.   On a new acquisition, we are about to clear very dense brush on an upland savanna.  The habitat currently has few native plants with the main ground cover being exposed soil.  Should we start adding seed immediately?  With Stephen’s permission I share his response – Bill K ]

The studies I’ve seen suggest that there’s little “seed bank” in badly degraded prairies, savannas, and woodlands. In some marshes, there seems to be a helpful seedbank.

I’ve seen a lot of people try to rely on the seedbank, with dismal results.

We initially waited for “the seed bank to express itself” in some areas, and it just opened the ground to a lot of thuggish or invasive species that – far from reconstituting a natural ecosystem – burned poorly and allowed invasive brush to take over again.

I don’t seem to have any blog posts on quite that question. I do have this one:

https://woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2015/11/seed-experiments-nov-24-2015.html

It’s about how well it worked in a woodland (lots of leaf litter) to plant into dense leaves without a burn. It didn’t work.

Also of possible interest is this overall summary of some Somme Prairie Grove efforts, starting in 1979. Broadcasting seed into former pasture worked best. On the other hand, this experiment is very different from the site you describe – in that it included many small remnants of good or high quality and more than 250 species of savanna plants including many conservative and even endangered ones.

https://woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-somme-prairie-grove-experiment.html

It includes the following:

Question: How well will a damaged ecosystem recover, and how much apparently missing biodiversity will just come back in response to remedial care?

Answer: Very few plant species that were not on our initial inventories came back from the seed bank or otherwise appeared. This was disappointing. On the other hand, many conservative species that had been present in small numbers increased dramatically. A few species (notably the endangered Bicknell’s geranium) did seem to emerge in response to the burns.

I suppose a wide variety of experiments are valuable. In more recent efforts I’ve been involved with, we’ve started seeding at the beginning, to get the jump on the thugs like tall goldenrod, to some degree.

Given the charged climate, rain acidity, nitrogen deposition, fragmentation, etc. – it seems to make less and less sense to limit seeding to species that were exactly on that site. We go farther south for seed, but not north. We imagine that the community of species that now best suit the site may be different to some degree from what was there 200 or 500 years ago.

Our goal seems more often to be to restore a high quality, diverse community, and then let the species sort out the rest.

Hope this is helpful.

 

 

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The Case of the Undead Buckthorn (Foliar Treatments with Triclopyr Herbicide)

Posted on September 9, 2019 by Grassland Restoration Network blog

By: Julianne Mason, Restoration Program Coordinator, Forest Preserve District of Will County

We have had a recurring issue over the past decade with common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) not truly dying after being foliar treated with triclopyr 3A herbicide in dolomite prairie habitats.  The buckthorns are 2-5’ tall, multi-stemmed re-sprouts that have been repeatedly top-killed by fire over the past several decades.  The buckthorns appear to die properly at first.  After the foliar herbicide treatment, the leaves yellow, then turn brown and fall off prematurely.  However, lots of the shrubs re-sprout vigorously the following year.  This has happened with foliar treatments done in the early summer, late summer, and fall.  Apparently buckthorn is a calciphile in its native habitat, so perhaps it is just particularly hard to kill in calcareous habitats here?  Has anyone else observed buckthorn or other invasive shrubs appearing to die after foliar herbicide treatments, only to rebound vigorously the following year?

Photo 1 caption:  Undead buckthorn.  Many of the buckthorns that had been foliar treated with triclopyr herbicide re-sprouted vigorously the following year.  Photo taken a year after the herbicide treatment.

Buckthorn does seem to die reliably from cut stump and basal bark treatments of triclopyr 4 herbicide in bark oil, in the same dolomite prairie habitats.  Therefore, I hypothesized that perhaps the ester formulation of triclopyr might be more effective than the amine formulation.  To test out this theory, I marked buckthorns that were foliar treated with triclopyr 3A or triclopyr 4 at concentrations of 2%, 5%, or 10% during September 2018 at Lockport Prairie.  All treatments included 1% MSO and 0.4% PenATrate II surfactants.  Around 50-100 shrubs were included in each treatment.  We put color coded flagging on each treated buckthorn to keep track of its treatment type.

All of the treated shrubs appeared to die after treatment; their leaves turned brown and fell off prematurely last fall.  However, many of them rebounded vigorously the following spring.  Contrary to my expectation, I didn’t see any significant difference in mortality rates between the two different formulations of triclopyr (3A or 4), as evaluated 1 year after treatment (YAT).  However, there was greater mortality using the 10% concentration of triclopyr herbicide compared to lower rates.

2% Concentration.  Despite the promising results immediately after treatment,  less than 10% of the buckthorns that had been foliar treated with 2% triclopyr were dead this summer (1 YAT); nearly half of them had re-sprouted vigorously from the base while the rest of them fully leafed out from the top.

5% Concentration.  Less than 25% of the buckthorns that had been foliar treated with 5% triclopyr were dead this summer (1 YAT).  Around one quarter of them fully leafed out from the top, while around half of them resprouted vigorously from the base. 

10% Concentration.  Around 70% of the buckthorns that had been foliar treated with 10% triclopyr were dead this summer (1 YAT).  Conversely, nearly one-third of the treated buckthorns had resprouted and were still alive.

Based on these results, I would recommend using 10% triclopyr as a foliar treatment and be sure to follow up on re-sprouting individuals the next year.  Or, I might try basal bark/base spraying them with triclopyr 4 in an oil-water emulsion.

https://grasslandrestorationnetwork.org/2018/11/08/julianne-mason-on-basal-bark-applications-using-an-oil-water-emulsion/

Bottom Line:  Beware of invasive shrubs appearing to die right after foliar herbicide treatments, only to re-sprout the following year.  Has anyone else experienced a similar thing with buckthorn or other invasive shrubs?  I find it hard to believe that our buckthorns are truly unique.  It is a shame to spend time and money on treatments that are not effective.  Plus, herbicide treatments cause collateral damage to other plants.  It is a double shame to kill off-target species and not actually achieve the goal of addressing the invasive species population.  Mark some of your foliar treated shrubs and check them next year to make sure that the treatment actually worked.  Do you have undead invasive shrubs too??

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