June 2024 • Nebraskaland 43
farmed or otherwise heavily
disturbed. These habitats, considered
"weedy" by some, often teem with
common milkweed along with annual
plants including foxtails, ragweeds
and sunfl owers. These plants benefi t
a variety of wildlife, including
gamebirds and songbirds, as well as all
stages of the monarch lifecycle from
eggs to migrating adults.
He disks and tills only to a depth of 1
to 2 inches. Nonetheless, this shallow
disturbance exposes buried seeds,
allowing their germination, and breaks
the rhizomes of brome and bluegrass,
weakening the plants.
"Of all our management practices,
tilling and disking result in the best
response of common milkweed," said
Hamer. "The response is best on clay
and loam soils and less so on sandy
soils." After several years, however,
if the grasses regain vigor and the
milkweeds and annuals decline, the
site may once again need to be disked.
On his WMAs, Hamer has also
stopped planting traditional wildlife
food plots where row crops such as
corn and milo are planted and weeded
with cultivation or herbicides. Instead,
he broadcast plants food plots with
sorghum, milo or mustards and does no
weeding. Although competition from
annual plants diminishes crop yields,
they provide ideal brood-rearing
cover for pheasant, quail and turkey
chicks and support plentiful insects
for the chicks to eat. The food plots'
early-successional plants include
common milkweed as well as annual
sunfl owers. Fall-migrating monarchs
fl ock to the sunfl owers for nectar.
Hamer also uses other management
practices to increase milkweeds,
including prescribed fi re, grazing
and herbicide spraying, often in
combination. "It's OK to be aggressive,"
he said. "The more aggressive you are,
the more milkweeds you'll get."
In summary, Nebraskans can help
the monarch by boosting milkweeds
anywhere on the landscape. City
dwellers can plant milkweed seeds
or seedlings about their yard and
garden, while farmers, ranchers and
acreage owners can follow the steps
provided above to increase milkweeds.
Monarchs are superb long-distance
fl iers, and if you have milkweeds, they
will come.
N
The Monarch Joint Venture's
Pollinator Habitat Help
Desk (337-422-4828) is a
free resource available to
landowners and others
seeking guidance on how
to establish milkweeds or
otherwise enhance or create
monarch habitat.
Light disking in disturbed native warm-season grasslands, as shown here, and
non-native cool-season grasslands stimulates the growth of common milkweed
and annual plants. CHRIS HELZER, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY
Monarch Habitat
