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Channel: restoration – The Prairie Ecologist
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What we know about managing soil carbon in prairies – a complete (but...

I’ve delayed writing a post about soil carbon and soil health in prairies for years because I haven’t been able to figure out how to do it.  It’s a difficult subject to write about because we...

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Seeds of Promise

It’s hard to describe the varied emotions involved in cleaning and mixing big piles of prairie seed.  There is incredible optimism embedded in those tiny packages.  After all, each seed has the...

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A Plot-Sized Biodiversity and Photography Project

Today, I’m beginning a new photography project aimed at exploring and celebrating the small scale diversity and complexity of prairies.   I’ve picked out a 1 x 1 meter plot in a small patch of restored...

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The Joy, Angst, Excitement and Dread of Walking Through a Young Restored Prairie

Anyone who has watched a prairie seeding go through its first several years of establishment will appreciate and identify with this post.  For those of you who haven’t, the best analogy I can come up...

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How Small Is Too Small?

What’s the minimum effective size of a prairie? For example, can a prairie be the size of a kitchen table?  Let’s say someone converted a landscape full of prairie to an immense gravel parking lot,...

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Photo of the Week – March 24, 2017

Below are two photos of a creek and associated wetlands taken by a timelapse camera.  The first photo was taken in early June, 2015 and the second photo was taken about a month later.  Looking just at...

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Should We Manage for Rare Species or Species Diversity?

Land managers constantly make difficult decisions without really knowing the long-term consequences of their choices. Balancing the sometimes conflicting needs of rare plants like Canada milkvetch...

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A Milestone for Prairie Restoration

Because conservation work can sometimes seem like blowing into the wind, it’s important to pause periodically to celebrate progress.  For example, I am really excited about what has been accomplished...

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Hubbard Fellowship Post – Community-Based Stewardship and Long-Term Management

This post is by Eric Chien, one of our 2016-17 Hubbard Fellows.  Eric hails from Minnesota, with an undergraduate education from Bowdoin College in Maine.  He has a strong background in prairie...

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Plant a Prairie February 13!

This post was written by Evan Barrientos, one of our Hubbard Fellows. Have you ever explored a restored prairie and stopped to marvel at how the site was once a cropfield? Do you ever wonder how that...

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Hubbard Fellowship Post – Ruminations While Disking

This post is written by Kim Tri, one of our two Hubbard Fellows for this year.  Kim is an excellent artist, as well as an ecologist, writer, and land steward.  As you can see, her drawings of animals...

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Chuck Norris of the Prairie

A big topic of conversation at this year’s Grassland Restoration Network (GRN) workshop had to do with designing seed mixes to combat potential invasive plant problems.  When converting cropland to...

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Grassland Restoration Network – Minnesota Style

I am writing this from Moorhead, Minnesota, where our crew is attending the annual Grassland Restoration Network workshop.  This year’s workshop is being hosted by The Nature Conservancy’s Bluestem...

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Media Coverage of Our Restoration Work

Our friends at Platte Basin Timelapse (PBT) created a very nice radio piece about our restoration work that aired on NET Radio (Nebraska Educational Telecommunications) today.   The link below includes...

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Karen’s Wetland Videos

One of my favorite places within our Platte River Prairies is a restored wetland we usually call “the sandpit wetland” because it is a former sand and gravel mining pit.  We restored the site over...

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Our New Mechanical Seed Harvester

Seed harvest is a big part of our work here at the Platte River Prairies.  We don’t do as much complete restoration (converting cropland to high-diversity prairie) as we used to because we’ve just...

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How Do You Evaluate Your Prairie?

The most challenging aspect of prairie management may be evaluating what’s happening on the land and what to do about it.  What should you focus on as you walk around a prairie?  Which plant species...

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Photo of the Week – June 12, 2014

While I was in Iowa last week, I took advantage of some free time just before sunset to return to one of the restored (reconstructed) prairies we’d visited earlier in the day at the Kellerton Wildlife...

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Photo of the Week – April 18, 2014

A couple weeks ago, I posted a few photos from the timelapse cameras at a restored wetland on our Platte River Prairies.  One of those showed the first documented use by sandhill cranes of that site,...

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Photo of the Week – April 3, 2014

This week, I present four photographs from one of the timelapse cameras along a restored wetland in our Platte River Prairies.  All four photographs were taken automatically by the camera, and none are...

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