Category Archives: General

Fall Harvest

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It’s harvest time!  When our neighbors start filling their combines with corn and soybeans, we know it’s time to harvest grass seed from our prairies too.  This year we don’t have a need for large amounts of seed from tall grasses,  so we’re not  combining our own seed.  Instead, we’ve been able to provide harvest sites to Prairie Plains Resource Institute.   They’re harvesting big bluestem, indiangrass, switchgrass, prairie cordgrass, and other prairie species from our sites to use in restoration work around eastern Nebraska.  In return, they’re giving us a share of the seed – in particular, a big load of  mixed seed from one of our more diverse restored prairies.  We’ll be using that seed to overseed some degraded remnants this winter.

 

Bill Whitney, of Prairie Plains Resource Institute, harvesting grass from a restored prairie at The Nature Conservancy's Derr Tract. Central Platte River, Nebraska.

 

While we’re getting our fair share of seed in return for letting Prairie Plains harvest from our prairies, I feel really good about being able to give something back to them for other reasons.  Bill Whitney has been a huge influence on my career (and that of many other ecologists).  He pioneered prairie restoration in Nebraska and I feel honored to have been able to learn his methods directly from him.

In addition, Bill was instrumental in getting The Nature Conservancy started on high-diversity prairie restoration back in the early 1990’s, and our earliest restoration sites were planted by Prairie Plains.  Much of the seed Bill’s been harvesting this week is coming from sites that he initially harvested seed for and planted 12-15 years ago.  So, really, we’re just letting him reap what he sowed.

If you’re interested in prairie restoration, you too can learn directly from Bill.  Gerry Steinauer, with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, took the initiative to capture Bill’s methods, along with input from me and others, and put it all into complete and readable guide.  You can download the guide here:  http://prairienebraska.org/Restoration%20Manual.pdf

Photo of the Week – October 11, 2010

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Sometimes good photos really do come from being in the right place at the right time.  It’s a horrible cliche, but not inaccurate.

Sunrise rainbow over loess hills prairie at The Nature Conservancy's Broken Kettle Grasslands in Iowa.

I was visiting The Nature Conservancy’s Broken Kettle Preserve in the fall of 2008, photographing the reintroduction of bison to that prairie.  The night after the bison were unloaded from a big semi-trailer from South Dakota I camped out nearby so I could get up and photograph them the next morning.  When my alarm woke me before sunrise, however, the skies were cloudy and it was cold and drizzling – not the conditions I was hoping to see for my photography.  I very nearly rolled over to go back to sleep, but told myself I’d come a long way and might as well get a good walk in. 

I got up and drove the short distance back to the hills above the corral where the new bison were being temporarily housed.  I hiked up into the hills, still wondering why I was out in the drizzle and cold, when the rising sun suddenly broke through a small break in the clouds and lit up a beautiful double rainbow over the loess hills.  It was a stunning sight that lasted just long enough for me to wrestle my camera out of the bag, sprint to the top of the nearest hill, and squeeze off a few hurried shots. 

Then the clouds covered the sun back up and I stood in the cold drizzle trying to catch my breath and thinking about serendipity…