Upcoming seed planting plans

It's still a long way to April, but it doesn't hurt to think ahead. We've got lots of seeds in the barn, waiting to be planted as soon as our spring burn season is over. Last fall we made a list of areas to be planted, with acreages, so that we would know how to make our seed mixes. The table below was the result.

As can be seen, most of the areas to be planted are small. We are finished planting large fields to prairie. But a number of problem areas remain.

The sunflower areas are those where there were solid clones of Helianthus divaricatus, which had essentially crowded out all other species. These were mostly small, but not so small that one could wait for them to get colonized spontaneously. Although the sunflowers are gone (due to use of herbicide), this species grows so dense that nothing else can compete. Who knows what the seed bank under these is? Depending on where they are, they will be getting either the dry-mesic or oak savanna mix.

Another problem, as those who have read this blog know, has been pale Indian plantain (Arnoglossum atriplicifolia), another native but very aggressive clone-former.

Most of the other areas in the table below are locations where sumac or other brush had been removed, and were fairly bare of "good" plants.

The seed mixes are all made. As soon as the land has cooled after the spring burns we'll be planting.

Unit	Description	Acreage	Type
Valley Prairie	Road cut	0.3	DRY-MESIC
Toby’s N at E end	Sunflower area	0.3	DRY-MESIC
7	E of Hickory Ravine/near Unit 18	0.5	DRY-MESIC
8	Bare area on S side	0.2	DRY-MESIC
10	Pale Indian plantain (PIP) area along woods road	0.2	DRY-MESIC
11A	Another PIP area along saddle road	0.4	DRY-MESIC
11A	Brush cut areas off side road and off woods road	0.5	DRY-MESIC
12B	W end of Toby’s	0.2	DRY-MESIC
12A	Sunflower area along gravel road	0.1	DRY-MESIC
20	By gate and PV road cut	0.1	DRY-MESIC
20	E end of Pocket Prairie	0.1	DRY-MESIC
Total	Dry mesic acres	2.9	DRY-MESIC
Cty F road cut		0.5	OAK SAVANNA
Triangle		0.1	OAK SAVANNA
6/9	Gully above big bur oak	1.0	OAK SAVANNA
5	Below S fire break	0.5	OAK SAVANNA
7	Hickory Ravine	0.3	OAK SAVANNA
10	Sunflower clone	0.1	OAK SAVANNA
11A/D	PIP area along Mid Savanna Trail	1.0	OAK SAVANNA
11D	Sunflower area	1.5	OAK SAVANNA
12A	Big Sunflower clone	1.5	OAK SAVANNA
13A	Sunflower area	0.6	OAK SAVANNA
19D	Sunflower area	0.1	OAK SAVANNA
Total		7.2 acres	OAK SAVANNA