The emotional response you have to this photo will say a lot about your background, experience, and cultural influences.
A profusion of annual sunflowers (Helianthus petiolaris) in sandhill prairie at The Nature Conservancy’s Niobrara Valley Preserve in north central Nebraska.
The sandhills of Nebraska consist of nearly 20,000 square miles of prairie. The scale can be hard to comprehend until you have driven through it for hour after hour, gaping at the beauty spreading out all around you. When I drove through a good portion of the eastern sandhills this week, a lot of it looked like this photo – covered with blooming yellow sunflowers.
Many readers of this post will be thinking, “Wow! What a beautiful year in the sandhills!” But I know others of you are thinking, “Ugh, what do we have to do to get rid of these invasive weeds?”
I’m going to get to that discrepancy, but let’s first back up and look at why the sunflowers are so abundant this year. First, the sunflower species we’re talking about here is an annual called plains sunflower (Helianthus petiolaris). It germinates from seed in the spring, flowers in the summer, and dies at the end of the same year.
During the drought of 2012, annual sunflowers were among the few plant species able to continue growing and flowering during the hot dry summer. Because of that, sunflowers were able to produce copious amounts of seed, many of which ended up on the ground at the end of the year. Few other grassland plants produced anything comparable to the seed crop of those sunflowers.
The spring of 2013 brought abundant rain to the dry sandhills. In addition, the plant litter from last year’s dry growing season was thin and sparse, allowing a lot of light to hit the soil. That combination of abundant light and moisture was exactly what all those plains sunflower seeds needed, and they germinated.
Of course, germination doesn’t ensure survival, and many annual plants germinate each year, only to be quickly overshadowed and outcompeted by strong perennial plants. Perennials have the advantage of a pre-existing root system that can monopolize moisture and nutrients from the soil while annuals are still struggling to get started. In years when perennial grasses and wildflowers are strong, there is very little space for annuals to grow, except in places where the soil and plant community were disturbed by digging animals or intensive grazing/trampling.
However, in the spring of 2013, not only were conditions perfect for plains sunflower germination, competing perennial plants were also weak from drought and grazing in 2012, leaving lots of open space belowground for sunflower roots to take advantage of. In short, you couldn’t have designed a better situation for the sunflower. It was one of the few plant species to produce seed in 2012, and then it got light, moisture, and weak competition in 2013. It’s no wonder the hills are yellow!
Some people will look at this photo and see an amazing abundance of pretty wildflowers. Others will see weeds running amuck. At the Niobrara Valley Preserve, last year’s wildfire increased the favorable conditions for plains sunflower by creating massive amounts of bare ground for germination. While it looks like a monoculture from a distance, hidden among the sunflowers are lots of grasses and other plants that are slowly regaining their vigor. By next season, this will be a very different looking prairie.
Ok, back to the perception issue. Sunflowers are one of the most popular and well-known flowers in the world. They are big, attractive, and easy to recognize. On the other hand, many farmers and ranchers have grown up learning that sunflowers (of any kind) are weeds. The presence of sunflowers in a field or pasture – especially an abundance of them – can be seen as a badge of shame for the landowner who is clearly not managing his/her weed problems adequately.
The important thing to remember if you’re a rancher, however, is that the sunflowers are not outcompeting perennial grasses. Instead, the sunflowers are opportunists, taking advantage of the fact that grasses are weak. As perennial grasses recover from last year’s drought and/or grazing, they will reclaim the root space they lost in 2012 and sunflowers will have much less room to grow next year. Plains sunflower is a native prairie plant, and it’s role is to fill the space left when other plants are weakened (similar to ragweeds and other opportunistic species). If sunflower wasn’t filling that space, another “weedy” species would, and the alternative could be much worse.
Some ranchers will be tempted to spray their pastures to kill off the “invading” sunflowers, but that’s actually a counterproductive strategy. First, the annual sunflowers are going to die at the end of the season anyway, so if you want fewer sunflowers next year, the best strategy is to focus on limiting the germination and growth of next year’s crop by allowing perennial grasses and wildflowers to regain their dominance. Second, herbicide spraying will kill a number of other plant species that are both valuable as forage and competitors with sunflowers and other annuals. Why spend money to weaken the long-term viability of your grassland?
It’s also important to remember that cattle do eat sunflowers – they particularly like them early in the season when the leaves and stems are tender, but will also seek out the nutritious buds and flowers later in the season. The evidence of that can be seen right now; pastures grazed at certain times this year have many fewer blooming sunflowers than those that haven’t yet been grazed this season. In addition, of course, sunflowers are among the most valuable grassland plants in a prairie for wildlife and pollinators. They produce large nutritious seeds for birds and other wildlife, and have abundant and accessible supplies of nectar and pollen that attract numerous pollinator species. In short, sunflowers may not be everyone’s favorite plant, but they’re far from a useless weed or invasive threat.
For those of you who started out reading this post as fans of sunflowers, good for you! If you get the chance, you should take a drive through Nebraska’s sandhills this summer and enjoy the scenery – it’s not likely that we’ll see another year like this for a while. For those who are appalled by the abundance of sunflowers this year, maybe you can take some comfort from the fact that it’s a temporary phenomenon, and one tied to a particular combination of weather factors more than anything you or others did as land managers. Things will be different next year.
Regardless of whether or not you like sunflowers, I guess there’s one thing we can all agree on. The year 2013 will be one to remember!
Note: Nebraska has nine species of native sunflowers, seven of which are perennials. All of them are valuable for wildlife and pollinators, and important components of a healthy grassland community.
The Prairie Ecologist 
Great post. Most every spring, in South Africa there is an abundance of flowers (weeds!) in the Namaqualand area – and it has now become a great tourist attraction!
Chris,
Interesting and instructive post, as usual. I suggest that you record the place that each of the two photos was made and that you post follow-up images of the two sites one year from now, including in that follow-up post the images shown here. It would be a fascinating comparison.
Good idea Gary. I’ve got a few I can use for that.
Then there are those of us from Kansas. Hey! That’s our state flower!
Sunflowers were a crop grown by the Caddo Indians.
My first thought was of the Black Crowes’ song ‘She Gave Good Sunflower’.
Sunflowers make me smile!
I think they’re beautiful, even if they are overabundant this year. I live in the suburbs of Chicago where there’s not a whole lot left to look at. I could sit and watch your prairie for hours, days even, and not get bored. It’s beautiful.
You’ve given me a whole new perspective about this flower, that’s for sure. Great post.
Prairies seem to bloom exceptionally well after a drought. For us in Houston, the drought was 2011. In the middle of the Deer Park (in greater Houston) petrochemical industry, is a rare platinum quality 54-acre coastal tallgrass prairie remnant, which conservation groups are desperately trying to save (deadline Aug 20,2013, http://www.bayoulandconservancy.org/#!deer-park-prairie/c17e5). The following year in 2012 that prairie was ablaze with snowy orchids, followed by Texas coneflower, followed by Liatris pycnostachya, followed by gulf muhly and Salvia azurea. Stunning! See gorgeous photos at http://www.SaveOurPrairie.com. Unfortunately all that will be bulldozed to build a housing development unless a miracle happens. I’ve heard that prairies thrive in catastrophes.
Not quite on topic, but very important, Lan. Thanks for the notification. I’ve contributed.
Thank you very much for your contribution! We had good news. “Just yesterday evening Terry Hershey, Houston’s pre-eminent greenspace advocate, pledged $2 million to Bayou Land Conservancy to help save Deer Park Prairie.” The Hamman foundation just added $200,000 this morning. We still need 1.7 million more, but things are looking much brighter now for this piece of the coastal tallgrass prairie, once called “the rarest of the rare” (D. Ladd, TNC)
I visited the Sandhiils in early July and was astounded by the numbers of annual sunflowers in bloom. Quite a sight in places. I live in western Colorado and we have some in the Four Corners area but not in those numbers. My Dad was a long ago rancher in western Nebraska on the short grass steppes of southern Sioux County and I remember as a kid that some years had large blooms. He told me that the cattle liked the flowers.
Great photos of a great plant. I also enjoyed seeing the dead cedar trees in one of them.
A cousin of mine who summers in the Colorado Rockies north of Salida just sent me a photo of the remarkable spread of sunflowers blooming there right now, presumably for similar reasons as those operating in the Nebraska sandhills. And I recalled seeing, more than 60 years ago, the entire vast San Luis Valley (which centers on Alamosa) in Colorado, covered for mile after mile with the same type of sunflower — an incredible scene, surrounded by mountain ranges and with the Great Sand Dunes (now a National Park) for contrast in one corner of the valley. I’m from Kansas myself, and have special feelings for sunflowers. Thanks for sharing the photo and the lore about their place in prairie ecology.
John I. Blair
Arlington, Texas
I’m reminded of that classic Byrd’s song, “turn, turn, turn” when I think of the ebb and flow of prairie forb and grass dominance.
Ah, Sunflowers! A cheery sign the ecosystem is working as it should.
We just traversed the Sandhills for a family reunion. The abundant and beautiful sunflowers were a special gift. I noticed they were interspersed with vigorous grass species–multiple beneficiaries of the 2013 rainfall. Thank you for the balanced post!
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Thank you for your article. I saw the sunflower phenomenon the middle of August between Merriman and Valentine and it took my breath away! I have lived in and around the sandhills for over 50 years and had never seen a sight like that! I took photos and plan to include a painting of sandhills and sunflowers as I prepare for a show at the West Nebraska Art Center in Scottsbluff. I will probably entitle the painting “The Year of the Sunflower”. All the while I have been wondering about the effect of the flowers on the grazing land and what next year might bring. You helped me understand things! My show is on Nebraska sights, out of the way places and my favorite scenes.
Jo Haslow
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Beautiful photos! What do you think this spot will look like this year? Do you know where in Nebraska you can find sunflower fields?
I have a related question (I hope). Today we visited the Vore Buffalo Jump in Beulah,WY and they were having an interesting problem. All of the wild sunflowers on the site had been dug around the stem 2-3 inches down and completely around the plant. Most were still thriving while others fell over and died. What could be doing this? Rabbits, woodchucks? Please help. Thank you, Betsy
Looking for a perineal sunflower seed for a project in S/W Michigan , can anyone refer me to a seed supplier that I can contact .- Thank You.
Nebraska has nine species of native sunflowers, seven of which are perennials. All of them are valuable for wildlife and pollinators, and important components of a healthy grassland community. I would like to have a list of the nine sunflowers native to Nebraska. If possible please email me a list. Thank you.
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Thank you for your post! We have a three hungry dairy cows, who have eaten their pasture quickly and are waiting for some lucern that’s been grown for them… I was so relieved to see I could feed them sunflowers to top up as we had a bunch growing in our veggie garden. They were also quite relieved that I read your post and we got some fun pictures of them eating big beautiful yellow flowers! Mandy Liddle, Namibia
Traveling across IA, NE, and CO to and from Wisconsin I am struck by the beauty of the native sunflower mostly along fencerows. These just started growing in my daughter’s yard in suburban Denver and the finches and bees are loving it. I will try and establish them to grow along with my ironweed, mint, cup-plants and milkweed. I live in a semi-rural area of monocropping. The bees are diminishing. FYI, I have been a long-time of Nature Conservancy. Thanks for the insight.
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These are NATIVE flowers. They are just doing what nature does. What do you think would be happening if humans weren’t here? This is literally how nature works.