A NONPROFIT, TAX DEDUCTIBLE ORGANIZATION P.O. Box 3544 Mankato, MN 56002
THE PRAIRIE ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES 02-24-05

The Prairie Advisory Committee annual meeting was Thursday, February 24, 2005, at the Unimin plant in Ottawa. Chuck Collins represented Unimin, along with his deputy, Kurt Stohler, and the new manager of the Kasota plant, Jeff Jurewicz. Mike Hiltner of Prairie Restorations (PR) participated, along with Kevin Bigalke of Friends of the Minnesota Valley (FMV), Harriet and Charles Mason, and Eric Steinmetz for SKP.

As is usual, about half the meeting consisted of Mike reporting on PR projects of the past year and their plans for the growing season to come, with questions and comments from the rest of us gradually becoming a free-form discussion of hopes and possibilities.
The major new project last year was the late (mid June) burn in Management Zone Four. This, Mike recapitulated, was an attempt to control sweet clover infestation without the undesirable side effects of chemicals or the time, labor, and expense of mowing, either over broad areas with a tractor or in teams of hand mowers. While these methods have made great improvements in the quality of the Prairie in many areas they have been less than effective in eliminating sweet clover, and have been very cost-and labor-intensive, precluding other projects that might have added to the use and enjoyment of the Prairie.

The late burn held out the promise of definitively breaking the seed cycle of the sweet clover by destroying emergent plants before they flowered but after they had exhausted reserves that would allow them to sprout again. The concern in this method was collateral damage from the burn to desirable prairie vegetation, particularly the flowering forbs that play such an important role in the prairie ecology. To monitor this PR flagged a number of plants and communities of plants in Zone Four.

Despite a wet spring and beginning summer, conditions were good in the middle of June, with an excellent fuel load of dead vegetation to sustain the burn. Mike was able to burn hot and fast with devastating results to the emergent sweet clover everywhere except on the walking path where there wasn't adequate fuel load. Monitors saw almost no re-emergent sweet clover in the area that had been most heavily and stubbornly infested. Native plants including forbs seemed to recover well. Many spring flowers were seen to bloom again in the reduced ground cover. Even the semi-woody lead plants were able start over and complete their flowering cycle, if somewhat reduced in size. We also discussed the bloom of other, less desirable plants, some native and some exotic, that had not been seen in any concentration since the beginning of restoration of those parts of the Prairie that had been most run down by years of grazing. The most noticeable was the horse nettle ground cherry and a variety of invasive non-native grasses. These had never disappeared entirely but were held in check by the health and vitality of the native prairie plants. Mike is confident that they will fade again into the background after they lose the opportunity afforded by this short-term disruption of the normal growing cycle. He is, in fact, so encouraged by the good results and acceptable side effects shown that PR is planning a similar late burn in the coming year for Zones One, Two and Three and has begun preparation by cutting firebreaks along the fence line south of Zone Two near the equipment gate, and along the drainage boundary across from Zone Four.

This is fairly breathtaking as that is something like 55% of the Prairie Conservation Zone. I agree absolutely with Mike's assessment of the results in Zone Four, but I'm anxious to see how it fares this year and a little apprehensive about going forward on such an extensive scale. I also brought up John Levell's often voiced concern of the stress on populations of small reptiles, amphibians and mammals caused by even a short term loss of forage and cover over such a large area and the resulting exposure to predation. We discussed these concerns and agreed that the opportunity of breaking the back of the sweet clover infestation is compelling. This is an off-year for the Prairie Open House. We've spent most of our resources on sweet clover for each of the past twelve years and, while we have made good progress, have never gotten to the point of being able to move on to concentrate on other concerns. Mike would like to take on the goldenrod, especially in Zone Four where he believes it is getting out of hand. We also may be coming to the point that we want to beat back the sumac spreading into some of the best prairie areas of Zones Two and Four. Mike says the best approach to this might be "stem injection," a method that has proven highly effective but is also cost- and labor-intensive. Mike is concerned that the major challenge in Zone Six, the restoration on the northeast, is going to be, not sweet clover, but red clover and Dutch white clover. He says that we have no idea how fortunate we are that they have not been that much of a problem in the preservation areas, but Zone Six will require early and intensive efforts to give the restoration to native prairie plants a chance to succeed.

Kevin and I talked for a while about discussions we have been having about a joint SKP/FMV volunteer project to clear European buckthorn that has been spreading from the wooded fringe along the river bluffs. Mike thinks fire is going to keep buckthorn from becoming a problem in the prairie areas but agrees it would be nice to clean out the woody margin. But he cautioned that too many volunteer projects are deficient in thinking they have solved a problem after a major effort to clear a stubborn exotic, without being prepared to follow through. Anything we could do with buckthorn would be in early autumn and so we will have to explore this further with the Friends.

We also brought the others up to date on the wall project. A neighbor of Mark's is a stoneworkers and has submitted a bid to tear down the old wall and build a new one with the proper cut stone and mortar. We are thinking this will not involve going down to the footings that Jean sunk four feet in the ground and I have some question whether it is necessary to completely dismantle the part that is a retaining wall curving to the north end of the parking lot – that part is in good shape yet – but we decided that getting the wall fixed after all this time is so desirable we are not going to quibble. The cost is bid at $16,500. The plan is for the infrastructure reserve portion of the Kasota Prairie Fund administered by FMV will provide $15,000, and SKP will cover the other $1,500 out of funds donated by the Prairie Ecology Bus folks.

Kevin talked some about our joint plans for interpretive signs made from durable, non-fading composite material by a company FMV has used. We discussed a number of considerations including the possibility of vandalism and theft of these expense signs, the need to be able to take in the signs on the Prairie for burns and other work by PR and perhaps through the winter, and the need to secure and protect any sign at the Entry point. Mike tossed out the idea of stone markers, perhaps with numbered metal tags that would be keyed to a printed brochure that we could somehow make available to visitors at the Entry or by downloading from the website. But of course a passive distribution station at the Entry would have all the same problems of servicing and protecting and would have the potential of contributing litter, and people would have to know in advance about anything on the website. Also, any stone marker or sign that was substantial enough to stand out on the Prairie would be very difficult to transport and place cheaply, efficiently and with a minimum disruption of the Prairie. I remember how many problems we encountered with the culvert between Zones Four and Five, the rocks for erosion control at the Gulch, the bench and the wall itself.

Finally, we spent some time talking about a project to preserve the history the work we have all done on the Prairie. Mike had along a copy of the poster-sized map of the Prairie that many of us had admired at last year's Open House. It is derived from the old topographic map used for years but has all the management zones properly delineated with a key that summarizes the timing and investment Unimin has made through PR to restore the Prairie. It would really be nice to have a copy for SKP public events and perhaps put it on the website. Chuck agreed that we could get one and Mike will bring it up to date in its present form and see about working on an adapted version that would be able to show the changes in terrain and work to restore the bootheel section to the north. I also put forward the idea of a comprehensive history – when and where trees were cut, seeding done, mowing and chemical treatment targeted specific problems. Mike said that information was scattered over years of invoices and field notes and it would be a major chore to pull together and not a chore PR could allow outsiders to pursue. I asked him to at least put together an estimate of the time and cost if PR personnel were to do it, and I agreed on my part to go back in SKP archives for relevant references that might help and flesh out what might be available from PR records. We agreed that nothing definitive could likely be started before next year's meeting of the Committee, but every year we let slip by means that much more information will be lost and the task that much more daunting. We need to do something about this while there are still people alive and remembering what we did there. It would be a valuable record for SKP. PR. Unimin, and the public, today and in years to come.

Eric Steinmetz