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native plants

Stewardship Roundtable meeting this Wednesday!

By
June 7, 2010
deer management, ecological restoration, native plants

Baldpate Mountain USGS Topo

The next Stewardship Roundtable meeting is this Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at Baldpate Mountain in Titusville.

The “business” portion of the meeting will involve discussion of the deer letter, the native and do not plant list, and support of the Phillip Alampi Beneficial Insect Rearing Laboratory. Over lunch there will be a discussion of stewardship of Flagship Preserves  including management of rare flora and fauna, public education programs, trails, restoration, land preservation, and partnerships.

Finally, there will be a walk to see ecological restoration in action at Baldpate Mountain with Sharyn Magee, Cornell Birds in Forested Landscape data collector and volunteer Breeding Bird Surveyor.  For more information, directions, and a complete agenda, click here.

Warm Season Grassland Drill for Sale!

By
August 27, 2009
native plants, warm season grassland restoration

Truax Grass Seeder

MacKenzie passed along this – seems like a really good deal for an organization that might be looking to do native prairie restoration projects.

A Truax seeder being auctioned by the state of Virginia.  This machine looks to be about 50% wider than the ones we have.  No guarantees on its condition, though.  The current bid is ~$500.  See http://www.govdeals.com/eas/itmDisplay.cfm?itemID=7421&acctID=226.

This might be a good buy for a contractor-farmer, or someone planning to seed any appreciable acreage of warm-season grasses (at the typical $20/acre rental fee plus delivery, you’d spend $500 to plant just 25 acres with a rented Truax).  We get a lot of calls from farmers looking to rent ours for various types of no-till plantings, so it’s clear there’d be a demand for something like this locally.

Vernal Pool Pest

By
April 20, 2009
native plants, non-native invasive plants
2 Comments

A heads up for monitors of streams, vernal pools and other waters:

I took a walk along the headwaters of Rock Brook in the Sourlands a couple weeks ago and noticed the invasive plant white water cress (Rorippa nasturium-aquaticum) in the streambed.

I also found white water cress in a vernal pool about 1500′ north of the stream and at one other vernal pool in the Sourlands several miles away.

Small populations of this plant are easy to remove by gently hand pulling. The roots are often lodged in soft soils. Chilled and immobile hands, damp sneakers, and “stewardship back” (aching lower back from hunching over invasive species) were the worst I experienced.

ABOUT THIS INVASIVE SPECIES:

White water cress is a member of the Mustard family. It can grow fully or partially submersed in shallow waters. It will destroy vernal pools by creating a mass of plant material. It also infests streams, ponds, and other quiet waters where it outcompetes native plants.

It overwinters as bright green basal rosette with pinnately lobed leaves. It is noticably bright green compared to native species that grow similar habitats. For example, our native golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium americanum) is a dull green.

White water cress flowers are small, white and have 4 petals. Seeds are borne in slender pods. When crushed the leaves smell pungent, like nasturtiums.

Plants can spread via seed or dislodging of the adult plant which can reroot downstream.

White water cress has native and non-native lookalikes, but the pungent smell (and taste this species is cultivated as an edible) is distinctive.

For more information: http://fohvos.org/pdfs/factsheets/Rorippa%20nasturtium-aquaticum_Invasive%20Plants%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

http://nbii-nin.ciesin.columbia.edu/ipane/icat/browse.do?specieId=91

Prescribed burning

By
March 2, 2009
deer management, forest management, native plants, non-native invasive plants, prescribed burning
1 Comment
Preparation for prescribed burning, Schiff Nature Preserve, 3/01/2009

Preparation for prescribed burning, Schiff Nature Preserve, 3/01/2009

I spent part of this past Sunday working with the NJ Forest Fire Service preparing for prescribed burning this spring at Schiff Nature Preserve.  This will be my third season of prescribed burning.

We have three goals with our program.  First and foremost, we want to reduce the wildfire danger to our neighbors by reducing the amount of flammable vegetation close to homes.  Second, the preparation work, if conducted properly and carefully, can help with maintenance and construction of woods roads and trails. There is one inaccessible portion of the Preserve where we will be creating a new trail that will also act as a firebreak.

Finally, prescribed burning can help maintain and restore degraded forests and meadows.  We have approximately 30 acres of native meadow habitat dominated by warm season grasses.  Prescribed burning is a proven way to effectively manage native warm-season grasses.  For our meadow management, we follow best management guidelines developed by the Xerces Society.  The Xerces Society recommends only burning 30% of a particular habitat patch in a given year to ensure long-term diversity of native polinators. 

Prescribed Burn Locations, Schiff Nature Preserve, Mendham, NJ

Prescribed Burn Locations, Schiff Nature Preserve, Mendham, NJ

In the forested areas of the Preserve, we want to reduce the density of non-native invasive plants which dominate the understory and inhibit forest regeneration.  Frequent burning will reduce the density of non-native invasive plants. At the same time we implement this prescribed burning plan, we are overhauling our white-tailed deer management program, which up to now has had limited success at reducing the over-browsing of our native plants.

The idea is that as the deer herd is reduced, the invasives will concurrently be reduced by yearly prescribed burning.  Eventually we will reduce the frequency of burning and hope to start to see native plants regenerating in the growing space vacated by the invasives.   I am a big proponent of adaptive management, so we will also be developing a simple monitoring protocol in order to determine if we are getting the ecological results we are expecting.  

I am interested to learn how others are using prescribed burning as a land management tool.

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