Tom's Journal

Rainfall and Hot Weather

Although we have been having quite hot weather (in the 90s F), there has been enough rainfall so that the plants are really thriving. This week we had over an inch of rain, spread out over several days. Today it was sunny and pretty humid. Despite the heat, Kathie and I spent the morning counting plants within quadrats along a transect through the prairie, savanna, and oak woods. Kathie is better than I am at identifying plants when they are not flowering, an essential skill if you are going to do anything quantitative. Our work here is fairly preliminary, but helps us to understand the role of light in plant distribution. We have canopy photos taken with a fish-eye lens to back up the species data.

Sandhill Crane Photo

The photo at right was taken "on the fly" by Chris Noll. He, Elke, and I were returning in the Mule along Pleasant Valley Road from some work when Chris spotted these two cranes walking along the Crane Prairie. He grabbed his camera and shot about 45 images within a minute or two. This one was the best, and is stunning when enlarged. The Crane Prairie seems to be appropriately named!

The Grasses are Starting to Flower

A prairie is nothing more than a wildflower garden without the prairie grasses. They make the wonderful prairie sod which holds the whole system together. These so-called "warm-season grasses" thrive best in hot weather and in our area only begin to flower in late July.

It is gratifying to see them starting to flower. Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii; photo at right) is now in bloom and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) is just a few days behind. These are the major grasses of the mesic (tallgrass) prairie. Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), the principal grass of dry (shortgrass) prairies, is almost ready. (I saw an early flower starting to peek out yesterday.) A minor but ubiquitous prairie grass is side oats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), which has been flowering for a couple of weeks now.

We will be collecting prairie grass seed again this year. The weather has been excellent for growth of our grasses. Hopefully, we will continue to get occasional rains so that good seed set will occur, but we won't know until late September how things are going to turn out.

Some Thoughts on Sweet Clover

We've been pulling sweet clover (Melilotus alba) since late May and we are still pulling it. It's persistence is maddening. It is a major part of our summer restoration budget, and this significant financial cost will continue into the distant future. The only bright side is that we no longer see the large patches that we saw a few years ago. Now we are dealing either with small patches (8-10 plants) or single isolated plants. However, even single plants can't be ignored, because each plant will produce dozens of seeds, which in two years will turn into dozens of flowering stems, and dozens of dozens will follow two more years later. Just like an infectious disease, you can't let it fester.

I think one reason we have not succeeded in eradicating sweet clover is because late in the summer many of the flowering stems are fairly short, and are easily missed in the tallgrass prairie. These short plants may make fewer seeds, but eventually they bring us back to where we started. This summer we are making a major effort to find these plants. Chris and Elke are periodically revisiting areas that the interns had worked on.

A few encouraging things. We no longer have patches so large that the only way they can be controlled is by mowing. Also, we have not seen much evidence of sweet clover spreading into new areas of the Conservancy. Problem areas are mostly the same ones we were dealing with in 2001. (According to knowledgeable experts, the seeds can persist for up to 30 years in the soil.) And sweet clover has been totally absent from our wetlands, oak woods, and most of the savannas. Except of the Valley Prairie, sweet clover has been a minor problem of the planted prairies. Finally, sweet clover is not a problem unique to our restoration. I have seen it during my visits this summer to numerous other prairie restorations in southern Wisconsin, even some of very high quality.

Transect Established

Today Chris, Elke, and I established a transect along which observations will be made of canopy cover and vegetation. We started at Pleasant Valley Road and ran a line due north up hill, across the ridge, and down the other side, ending at County Highway F. Stations were marked every 100 feet. On the Pleasant Valley Road side, facing south, prairie vegetation is predominates. Toward the top of the hill, the vegetation is savanna, and on the north-facing slope, oak woods.

We will be taking a digital photo at each station with a fish-eye lens, which provides a 180 degree view. Computer analysis of these photos will give the percent canopy cover. Quadrats placed at each station will be used for assessing the species composition.

We anticipate that this analysis will provide some interesting data on the relationship between native species and light intensity. If the data are interesting, more transects will be set up.

Doing the transect was not straightforward, since we had to run the line due north in spite of shrubs, trees, etc. that might interfere. This was a three-person job, and we got tangled up in a lot of brush and weeds. The whole transect, 12 stations, took close to 3 hours to complete.

Steve Packard's Work

Our interns were here today and fortunately the hot weather had broken, so working was not that bad. However, nine of them spent most of the morning on a single hedge parsley patch in the top part of Unit 15. We had known there was some hedge parsley in that area, but not that much. This plant may be a new invader in Wisconsin, but it has put down fairly deep roots at Pleasant Valley Conservancy.

After lunch I presented a brief overview of Chicago ecologist Steve Packard's work on oak savanna restoration. My talk was based partly on "Miracle Under the Oaks," by New York Times Science Writer William K. Stevens (New York : Pocket Books, c1995), which is primarily a discussion of Packard's work, as well as on some key Packard published papers.

Here is a greatly simplified summary of Packard's ideas: 1) Although the oak savanna habitat was one of the most widespread in the midwestern United States, there are no remaining examples in pristine condition. 2) However, there are areas with original or close to original oak trees, that contain partial or degraded remnant herbaceous populations. 3) If such degraded savannas are subject to controlled burns, suppressed species in the understory are often released. 4) After burning, seeding savannas with a wide variety of species collected from nearby local areas should be done. Those that thrive are probably typical savanna species. In a sense, the restoration process itself is being used as a research endeavor, to find out what sorts of herbaceous plants are savanna species.

What are typical savanna species? One of Packard's contributions was to discern that there were plant species that were actually unique to savannas and were absent or unimportant in prairies or oak woods. These unique savanna species may be adapted to light intensities lower than full sunlight, but considerably more than the light intensities found in oak woods. Some of these typical savanna species can be identified because they thrive under restoration conditions. Examples Packard gives of such savanna species are purple milkweed, various grasses of the genera Elymus and Bromus, upland boneset, cream gentian, broad-leaved panic grass, elm-leaved goldenrod, and Tinker's weed. As it happens, all of these species (and many more) are thriving in the savanna areas of Pleasant Valley Conservancy. (For a short summary of Packard's work see his 1988 paper: "Just a few oddball species: restoration and the rediscovery of the tallgrass savanna." Restoration and Management Notes Volume 6, number 1, pp. 13-22.)

Although Packard's savanna work was originally controversial, it is now widely accepted.

Local Heat Wave!

Temperatures above 90 F are uncommon in our area, but for the past several days the temperature has been well above this value. Today (Sunday) it reached 94 F with the relative humidity at 50%. Not a cloud in the sky. At these temperatures, with the sun blazing down, one thinks twice before working outdoors. I elected to stay home and update this web site. Several pages were surprisingly out of date and the species lists for the Valley Prairie and Barn Prairies really needed updating.

Monday...Very warm and humid. (National Weather Service prediction) With that prediction, Chris and Elke will be watering all of our seedlings again.

We are promised cooler weather for Tuesday, when our interns will be working. Let's hope so, since they were rained out last week and we have a lot of weeds that still need pulling!

Home	Tom's Journal
28 July 2006	Rainfall and Hot Weather Although we have been having quite hot weather (in the 90s F), there has been enough rainfall so that the plants are really thriving. This week we had over an inch of rain, spread out over several days. Today it was sunny and pretty humid. Despite the heat, Kathie and I spent the morning counting plants within quadrats along a transect through the prairie, savanna, and oak woods. Kathie is better than I am at identifying plants when they are not flowering, an essential skill if you are going to do anything quantitative. Our work here is fairly preliminary, but helps us to understand the role of light in plant distribution. We have canopy photos taken with a fish-eye lens to back up the species data.
26 July 2006	Sandhill Crane Photo The photo at right was taken "on the fly" by Chris Noll. He, Elke, and I were returning in the Mule along Pleasant Valley Road from some work when Chris spotted these two cranes walking along the Crane Prairie. He grabbed his camera and shot about 45 images within a minute or two. This one was the best, and is stunning when enlarged. The Crane Prairie seems to be appropriately named!
24 July 2006	The Grasses are Starting to Flower A prairie is nothing more than a wildflower garden without the prairie grasses. They make the wonderful prairie sod which holds the whole system together. These so-called "warm-season grasses" thrive best in hot weather and in our area only begin to flower in late July. It is gratifying to see them starting to flower. Big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii; photo at right) is now in bloom and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) is just a few days behind. These are the major grasses of the mesic (tallgrass) prairie. Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), the principal grass of dry (shortgrass) prairies, is almost ready. (I saw an early flower starting to peek out yesterday.) A minor but ubiquitous prairie grass is side oats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), which has been flowering for a couple of weeks now. We will be collecting prairie grass seed again this year. The weather has been excellent for growth of our grasses. Hopefully, we will continue to get occasional rains so that good seed set will occur, but we won't know until late September how things are going to turn out.
21 July 2006	Some Thoughts on Sweet Clover We've been pulling sweet clover (Melilotus alba) since late May and we are still pulling it. It's persistence is maddening. It is a major part of our summer restoration budget, and this significant financial cost will continue into the distant future. The only bright side is that we no longer see the large patches that we saw a few years ago. Now we are dealing either with small patches (8-10 plants) or single isolated plants. However, even single plants can't be ignored, because each plant will produce dozens of seeds, which in two years will turn into dozens of flowering stems, and dozens of dozens will follow two more years later. Just like an infectious disease, you can't let it fester. I think one reason we have not succeeded in eradicating sweet clover is because late in the summer many of the flowering stems are fairly short, and are easily missed in the tallgrass prairie. These short plants may make fewer seeds, but eventually they bring us back to where we started. This summer we are making a major effort to find these plants. Chris and Elke are periodically revisiting areas that the interns had worked on. A few encouraging things. We no longer have patches so large that the only way they can be controlled is by mowing. Also, we have not seen much evidence of sweet clover spreading into new areas of the Conservancy. Problem areas are mostly the same ones we were dealing with in 2001. (According to knowledgeable experts, the seeds can persist for up to 30 years in the soil.) And sweet clover has been totally absent from our wetlands, oak woods, and most of the savannas. Except of the Valley Prairie, sweet clover has been a minor problem of the planted prairies. Finally, sweet clover is not a problem unique to our restoration. I have seen it during my visits this summer to numerous other prairie restorations in southern Wisconsin, even some of very high quality.
19 July 2006	Transect Established Today Chris, Elke, and I established a transect along which observations will be made of canopy cover and vegetation. We started at Pleasant Valley Road and ran a line due north up hill, across the ridge, and down the other side, ending at County Highway F. Stations were marked every 100 feet. On the Pleasant Valley Road side, facing south, prairie vegetation is predominates. Toward the top of the hill, the vegetation is savanna, and on the north-facing slope, oak woods. We will be taking a digital photo at each station with a fish-eye lens, which provides a 180 degree view. Computer analysis of these photos will give the percent canopy cover. Quadrats placed at each station will be used for assessing the species composition. We anticipate that this analysis will provide some interesting data on the relationship between native species and light intensity. If the data are interesting, more transects will be set up. Doing the transect was not straightforward, since we had to run the line due north in spite of shrubs, trees, etc. that might interfere. This was a three-person job, and we got tangled up in a lot of brush and weeds. The whole transect, 12 stations, took close to 3 hours to complete.
18 July 2006	Steve Packard's Work Our interns were here today and fortunately the hot weather had broken, so working was not that bad. However, nine of them spent most of the morning on a single hedge parsley patch in the top part of Unit 15. We had known there was some hedge parsley in that area, but not that much. This plant may be a new invader in Wisconsin, but it has put down fairly deep roots at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. After lunch I presented a brief overview of Chicago ecologist Steve Packard's work on oak savanna restoration. My talk was based partly on "Miracle Under the Oaks," by New York Times Science Writer William K. Stevens (New York : Pocket Books, c1995), which is primarily a discussion of Packard's work, as well as on some key Packard published papers. Here is a greatly simplified summary of Packard's ideas: 1) Although the oak savanna habitat was one of the most widespread in the midwestern United States, there are no remaining examples in pristine condition. 2) However, there are areas with original or close to original oak trees, that contain partial or degraded remnant herbaceous populations. 3) If such degraded savannas are subject to controlled burns, suppressed species in the understory are often released. 4) After burning, seeding savannas with a wide variety of species collected from nearby local areas should be done. Those that thrive are probably typical savanna species. In a sense, the restoration process itself is being used as a research endeavor, to find out what sorts of herbaceous plants are savanna species. What are typical savanna species? One of Packard's contributions was to discern that there were plant species that were actually unique to savannas and were absent or unimportant in prairies or oak woods. These unique savanna species may be adapted to light intensities lower than full sunlight, but considerably more than the light intensities found in oak woods. Some of these typical savanna species can be identified because they thrive under restoration conditions. Examples Packard gives of such savanna species are purple milkweed, various grasses of the genera Elymus and Bromus, upland boneset, cream gentian, broad-leaved panic grass, elm-leaved goldenrod, and Tinker's weed. As it happens, all of these species (and many more) are thriving in the savanna areas of Pleasant Valley Conservancy. (For a short summary of Packard's work see his 1988 paper: "Just a few oddball species: restoration and the rediscovery of the tallgrass savanna." Restoration and Management Notes Volume 6, number 1, pp. 13-22.) Although Packard's savanna work was originally controversial, it is now widely accepted.
16 July 2006	Local Heat Wave! Temperatures above 90 F are uncommon in our area, but for the past several days the temperature has been well above this value. Today (Sunday) it reached 94 F with the relative humidity at 50%. Not a cloud in the sky. At these temperatures, with the sun blazing down, one thinks twice before working outdoors. I elected to stay home and update this web site. Several pages were surprisingly out of date and the species lists for the Valley Prairie and Barn Prairies really needed updating. Monday...Very warm and humid. (National Weather Service prediction) With that prediction, Chris and Elke will be watering all of our seedlings again. We are promised cooler weather for Tuesday, when our interns will be working. Let's hope so, since they were rained out last week and we have a lot of weeds that still need pulling!
13 July 2006	Farewell Old Bur Oak The 11 July rains brought down one of our icons, a bur oak that has been arching over our woods road forever. We knew this oak would go sometime, but its loss is still a bitter pill to swallow. As the photo shows, the whole center was hollow, which is fairly common in many of the older oaks. The above-ground living material in this tree was just a thin layer around the cambium, but there was probably a substantial living root system. I'd like to be able to leave this tree as it lies, but unfortunately, it is across our service road and will have to be cut up. The trunk will be able to stay.
12 July 2006	Japanese Hedge Parsley Chris, Elke, and I spent today taking care of sweet clover patches that the interns should have gotten yesterday (when we were rained out). Fortunately, the rain made pulling very easy, so we could cruise through the Conservancy fairly rapidly. I also worked on Unit 13, a savanna area at the east end of the property that has not had the attention it deserves. I found a few sweet clover patches, as well as a large patch of Japanese hedge parsley (Torilis japonica), a so-called emerging problem in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, this plant emerged for us 6 years ago. (The photo at right is courtesy of Missouri Plants.) According to the UW-Madison Herbarium web site, Japanese hedge parsley is present in only four counties in Wisconsin, one of which, Dane, is ours. Hedge parsley is a "winter" annual, which in our climate means that its seeds germinate in the fall and begin to grow. The plant then overwinters in a vegetative state and grows rapidly the following spring/summer. When it flowers (now) it is easy to spot and the stems are sturdy enough so that the plants can be fairly easily pulled. Because of its delicate inflorescence, single plants are easy to miss, and can expand in a few years into fairly good sized patches. In addition to pulling, I have found that one can use a foliar spray (glyphosate at 0.8% active ingredient) in late November or early December on the first-year plants. This works well in areas where infestations are known to be present, although single plants are so delicate that they are almost impossible to find. This is an excellent time to spray with glyphosate because all of the "natives" have died back for the year, and are unaffected. The Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources web site has a nice summary of the biology and control of this species: http://dnr.wi.gov/invasives/fact/japanparsley.htm
11 July 2006	The Rains Came The rains came today, wiping out all possibility of significant field work. Unfortunately, Tuesday is the day we have 10-12 UW-Madison interns working. They managed to get in three hours before the deluge came. Since they did not work last Tuesday (4th of July), we are in real danger of getting behind in our weeding. Bad luck for us, and also bad luck for the interns, since they will have to make up the hours at the end of the summer. However, now is when we need the most help, finishing up all those patches of sweet clover that have grown in the last couple of weeks. Who said field work was easy?
9 July 2006	Purple Milkweed The thermometer reached 90 F today, an uncommon occurrence in our area of Wisconsin. Fortunately, the humidity was low, making field work bearable. I surveyed the White Oak Savanna (Unit 12A), since I had not been there in a while. The more open areas are in their summer glory, with lots of color. This is an area that had major brush and bramble control last winter, and that work is paying off. Some of the species noted: Canada trefoil, rattlesnake master, white baptisia, bergamot, black-eyed susan, yellow cone flower, ox-eye sunflower, pasture thistle, Kalm's brome, silky rye grass, bottle-brush grass, pale Indian plantain, spiked lobelia, and woodland Joe Pye weed. Among all this riot of color I discovered---another patch of the State Endangered purple milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens). I missed its flowering but was delighted to see that five pods were forming. The anatomy of pod formation is interesting and I took a few close-up photos with the Nikon D70 (photo at right). As I have done for all other purple milkweed populations at Pleasant Valley Conservancy, I put a permanent numbered metal stake here. Another population to monitor in future years.
8 July 2006	Restoration at Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie In addition to our work at Pleasant Valley Conservancy, Kathie and I are the stewards for Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie, a State Natural Area owned by the Nature Conservancy and managed by us through The Prairie Enthusiasts. It is only about three miles from Pleasant Valley Conservancy and hence easy for us to keep an eye on. Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie is an exceedingly fine prairie remnant that has been visited and studied for many years. Although of very high quality, one continuing problem is the presence of patches of white sweet clover (Melilotus alba) (photo at right). Since Kathie and I took over management here, sweet clover has been one of our major targets. We run a volunteer "work party" the first Saturday morning of each month (the 2nd Saturday in July because of Independence Day), and today's activity was sweet clover control. The major patches are being handled by a contractor under a government grant, and the volunteers were responsible for pulling the outliers. The big patches can be mowed since there is nothing "good" mixed in. The group of 8 people cruised the 16 acre prairie and pulled any missed plants. Because our volunteers are knowledgeable, they can be selective and avoid destroying any desirable plants. In flower today were large amounts of butterfly milkweed (photo at right), lead plant, coreopsis, compass plant, rosin weed, black-eyed susan, and bergamot. We were able to enjoy the great flower display while making a real accomplishment!
8 July 2006
7 July 2006	Great St. John's Wort We are now in the midst of our prairie summer, when many of the most showy species are flowering. Bergamot, yellow cone flower, black-eyed susan, prairie cinquefoil, compass plant, rosin weed, and cup plant are now in full bloom. In the savannas, tall American bellflower is showing, as are bottle brush grass and silky rye. Many other species will be along shortly. One especially attractive member of the summer flora is Great St. John's Wort (Hypericum pyramidatum), which grows best in wet mesic habitats. Originally, our only remnant population of this attractive species was along County Highway F, but Kathie diligently collected seeds and planted in suitable habitats. We now have Great St. John's Wort growing profusely in the Valley Prairie as well as in the sedge meadow at the edge of our wetland. Today I spent some time taking photos of it with my Nikon D70 digital camera.
6 July 2005	Collecting Spiderwort Seeds Today, among other things, Kathie, Susan, and I collected spiderwort seeds. Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) is a spectacular flower and one of the species that we collect in a major way. Collecting is always a little tricky, because a few of the plants are still flowering when most of the rest have set seed. (The photo below right shows a typical seed head.) Also, once ripe, the seeds drop quickly, so timing is critical. Early July is usually the best time, but exact timing depends on the year and the site. Most of our spiderwort seeds were collected this year from Unit 18, an area where a major remnant population arose soon after woody plant clearing. We try to avoid overcollecting, removing no more than 30-40% of the seed heads. While collecting, we also break open some seed heads and spread the seeds uphill into areas where spiderwort is not present. Drying spiderwort is a major challenge, since the seed heads are fairly fleshy and retain quite a bit of moisture. Because the weather is quite warm at present, we simply spread out the seed on a tarp in the barn. We move them out into the sun in the daytime, and back inside at night, turning the seeds occasionally. As they dry, the seeds tend to fall out of the seed heads. Once dry, the mix is crushed by hand and then screened. It is fairly easy to clean spiderwort seeds.
6 July 2005
5 July 2005	Monitoring Purple Milkweeds Used the Kawasaki Mule and Fimco Sprayer to treat an area of the Crane Prairie with glyphosate. The Crane Prairie is in its first year and is still mostly weeds. The area treated with herbicide was an area that had been used as a lane but we decided that we did not want a lane in the middle of the prairie. Plans are to treat twice with glyphosate and kill all the grass (mostly nonnative smooth brome), then plant with a complete wet mesic prairie mix in the fall. The weather (clear, low wind, high 70s F) was excellent for herbicide spraying. After completing this task, I made a survey of some of our purple milkweed populations (a species on the State Endangered Species list) to see whether they were still flowering. Some were flowering and others were past flowering. I checked carefully to see if any of those past flowering had been fertilized and might later make seed. One can detect potential seed forming flowers because their peduncles start to curl or twist. Several flowers looked promising.
4 July 2006	Today I'm working on one of my alternate volunteer activities. I am the official historian for the Village of Shorewood Hills (where I live) and every Independence Day I lead a walking tour of the village. Usually 20-30 people show up. The village has many historic and famous houses, of various architectural styles. Each year my tour goes to a different part of the village. The weather is often hot, sometimes rainy, but this year it is fantastic, cool and sunny! In the evening, a nice fireworks display at Blackhawk Country Club.
3 July 2006	Controlling Canada Goldenrod? The weather has been dry this past week and our new seedlings were starting to show signs of moisture stress. Chris and Elke watered all 163 of our transplants. When I set up locations for the transplants, I ensured that we could reach any of them from our service roads without too much difficulty. The Kawasaki Mule has a small footprint and can bring water to places without damaging any vegetation. The other important activity today was control of Canada goldenrod that threatened to take over parts of the Pocket Prairie. Chris and Elke hand-clipped some large patches of this goldenrod and carried off the cut stems. Hand clipping has the advantage, over mowing, of selectively leaving any "good" plants. Last year I compared hand clipping with mowing. In the mowed patch, very few "good" plants appeared, whereas the hand-clipped patch had lots of desirable vegetation. Hand clipping is a lot more time consuming than mowing, but may have more permanent benefits.
2 July 2006	Today I updated the Vegetation Overview page on our web site. The principal item on this page is a map showing the various habitats at Pleasant Valley Conservancy. This map had become out of date because we had planted some new prairies, and made a few other changes. The map (from February 2005) had been prepared in Corel Draw 12.0 and was revised in the same program. It was exported as a jpg and replaced the Feb 2005 map.
General	Restoration is a detail-oriented hands-on activity, and careful records are necessary. When I am in the field, I always carry a small notebook in a belt bag. Observations of any kind, records of photos taken, brief descriptions of experiments, work done (such as weeding, seed collecting or planting, etc.), or any other items of interest are recorded. The diary records are copied every day or two, in order to have a backup. This copy is vital, since the record book is the only copy, and such things can be lost. The copy is filed. I have record books dating back to 1998 and copies of these record books. When I computerize the species check list in the early winter, the data come from my field notebooks.