NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/644631
38 NEBRASKAland • MARCH 2016 I n the coming decades, prairie restoration may well become an increasingly important conservation strategy in the Midwest. As climate change intensifies, and water for irrigation becomes even scarcer, drier regions of our state could become unarable. One option would be to seed these areas with a diverse mix of well-adapted prairie plants to provide sustainable grazing lands and wildlife habitat. In addition, in increasingly farmed and fragmented regions, such as eastern Nebraska, many plant and animal species are disappearing from small, isolated remnant prairies due to overgrazing, predation and other factors. Their security lies in larger prairie landscapes enhanced through restoration. Furthermore, as temperatures rise, many prairie species will be forced northward to more suitable climates to survive. Establishing corridors of grassland between the prairie landscapes would aid their migration across the miles of inhospitable intervening cropland. Last July, I attended the 13 th annual meeting of the Prairie Restoration Network in Moorhead, Minnesota and saw firsthand how The North Star State is gearing up its prairie restoration and conservation efforts to meet similar challenges. Prairie Restoration Inc. The Prairie Restoration Network was co-founded in 2002 by Chris Helzer of the Nebraska Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as "a means to allow Midwestern restorationists an opportunity to interact, share ideas and build on others' success." The two-day meetings are held in a different state each year and consist mainly of field trips to restoration plantings and facilities. On the first day of last year's meeting we visited the seed farm of Prairie Restorations Inc. (PRI), the nation's largest private prairie restoration company, located near Moorhead. Here seed is harvested from single species production plots and native prairies and wetlands to annually plant nearly 3,000 acres of restorations on conservation, corporation and private lands. PRI harvests and plants only local ecotype seed whose genetics originate from regional prairies, and avoids using seed of native cultivars – varieties bred for vigorous growth, seed production or showy flowers. "Restorations work best using local seed," said Ron Bowen, who founded PRI in 1977. "Cultivars of big bluestem and other prairie grasses Prairie Restoration A Strategy for Challenging Times By Gerry Steinauer, Botanist, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission During the meetings we also visited The Nature Conservancy's 6,078-acre Bluestem Prairie Preserve. This diverse landscape is home to over 400 native plant species.