Leveraging Prairie to Improve Habitat

By Kent Boucher

As I write this I am winding down for the evening after surviving an ice crusted day of freezing rain. A unique phenomenon my friend Luke Fritch and I have noticed on such days is the presence of pheasants near our houses as the ice glazes over all of the surrounding area. Today was no different as we both observed that same situation unfold. So what’s the cause? I’m not entirely sure, but my hypothesis is that they desperately seek out cover that isn’t smashed flat by ice and their search leads them to our yards where we have coniferous trees and prairie grasses that they can shelter in until the ice melts and they can return to their more secluded hideouts. As fun as it is to watch them up close by the house I can’t help but think how much better off they and other wildlife would be if there was more native prairie grass for them to seek shelter in across the landscape. Here’s how to help them.

Start with Reasonable Expectations

Good things take time. This is true with 401k’s, rookie quarterbacks, and establishing native warm season grass habitat. There’s no way around it, when you decide to plant prairie you are going to have to wait a few years for it to turn into a nice stand of cover that’s ready to house ground nesters and deer. Now that you understand you are in this for the long haul, it’s good to understand what the prairie will and will not provide for your local wildlife. Prairies used to be the dominant ecosystems across much of the mid-lower latitudes of the Midwest. During that time, species like elk, white-tailed deer, bison, wild turkeys, bobwhite quail, and prairie chickens thrived in these grasslands. The grasses provided excellent security cover for calving, fawning, hatching and brooding, and thermal cover during the frigid winters. From a food standpoint forbs (flowers) provided the best browse for deer, and seeds and insects for foraging by ground nesting birds. Adding prairie into your habitat management plan will bring these same benefits, but it’s important to understand that these different wildlife species use prairie in different ways, and to different extents. Whitetails will definitely bed and browse in prairie habitat, but they will almost always be found within close proximity to woodland habitat. In most cases, prairie alone will not be enough to hold deer. Turkeys are the same way, they will forage and breed in grassland areas, but they need forest for roosting, and spend much of their time within forested habitat. Bobwhites also need some woody cover, and research has shown they are rarely found more than 100 feet away from shrubby cover that transitions into prairie. Prairie chickens are no longer found in any significant number in Iowa, but pheasants are the closest species to prairie chickens that can be hunted in Iowa. Both of these species prefer grassland habitat over anything else and planting prairie will always benefit them the most. Prairie is a major part of a healthy habitat system for expanding wildlife carrying capacity, but it isn’t the only component that should be considered.

Design Your Planting

As an avid bowhunter I have learned the importance of having what I call 3-D cover to keep me camouflaged from the deer I’m hunting. The diversity of this kind of cover makes it very difficult to be spotted by the deer, and the same holds true for when the deer are trying to avoid detection from predators. The best place to find this kind of cover is in edges of transitioning habitat types. The best way to create this effect as a habitat manager is by planting prairie using a technique known as edge feathering. Edge feathering is accomplished by blending the outside edge of one habitat type (such as forest) with the leading edge of the next habitat type (prairie) in a way that elements of both habitat types are featured in the transition area. Besides edge feathering the other aspects that go into a prairie installation plan revolve around specific goals of the landowner. If late season pheasant and deer hunting, or even shed hunting is what you are after, then covering south facing hillsides with prairie should be a major priority. If cleaner ingress and egress to and from your treestand is needed, then planting some tallgrass prairie as a screen along overly exposed paths to the stand should be done. Or what often is needed on the Iowa landscape is linking isolated pieces of habitat together to promote more travel from deer between them. Of course there are many other specific habitat needs that can be met with a well designed prairie, but a good rule to keep in mind is that in order to drastically influence wildlife carrying capacity, or wildlife behavior is to plant big enough areas to significantly change the landscape. Small swatches of habitat won’t be enough to consistently garner the desired outcome.

Prep The Ground

Now that you know where you want your prairie, it’s time to prepare the ground for planting. This is really the make it or break it step for having a good stand of prairie, and many folks overlook it and focus their efforts on just the planting aspect. It is critically important to give prairie as close to a blank slate as possible to be planted into. This means at least two rounds of herbicide treatment to remove the existing nonnative cover. Both applications should happen during the growing season of the existing cover and should happen in a spring-fall or fall-spring succession. A spring herbicide treatment followed by a fall herbicide treatment allows for a winter dormant seeding which is best for promoting forb diversity. If possible, planting prairie into a picked cornfield or cut beanfield is the best way to start off with a blank slate. Once the ground is cleared, it’s time to plant.

Planting Prairie

One of prairie’s best traits is its diversity. Nature favors diverse ecosystems. The variance in species helps an ecosystem survive disruptions from natural and manmade disasters, disease, changes in climate, extinction events, etc. With that in mind planting a prairie that has a diverse array of species within the seed mix is very important. I recommend using a mix that has no less than a combined 30 species of grasses and flowers, and I would try to find a mix that has at least 45 different species. With all of these different species included in the seed mix there will be many that require a period of cold stratification to wake the seed out of dormancy and allow it to germinate. This is best achieved by planting in the winter months allowing the seed to stratify naturally on the cold ground. As for the planting process I recommend using a drop seeder type of native seed drill. The reason for this is because most native grasses and flowers will not germinate if planted deeper than a 1/4 inch, and a planting depth no deeper than 1/8 of an inch is even better. With the planting complete it’s now time to shift the focus to maintaining a healthy stand of prairie once it has become established.

Maintenance

In order for good things to last, maintenance is necessary. The hurdle to maintenance chores getting done is that this work is often physically taxing, time consuming and not as exciting as the beginning phases of the project. With establishing prairie habitat this same reality holds true, but if you want a healthy prairie that’s going to provide habitat value over the long haul you’ll have to clear some time in your schedule and get the work done. There are two forms of maintenance needed with prairie: scheduled maintenance, and problem solving maintenance. The scheduled maintenance work begins with mowing in the first few years of the planting. For the first growth season three mowings should be done throughout the growing season with a general rule of mowing when the planting reaches knee high and cutting it down to ankle height. In the second year after establishment, this same mowing regimen should be used twice. By year three no widespread mowing should be needed. The other scheduled maintenance that needs to be done for a prairie is burning. This should be done every three years for the healthiest prairies and it should be alternated between different times of the year with a general rule being late spring burns (early-mid May at this latitude) to control invasive cool season grass encroachment, and a fall burn to promote flower diversity. Problem solving maintenance for prairie mostly revolves around dealing with invasive weed pressures, or tree encroachment that gain a foothold in a prairie. Species like canadian thistles, wild parsnip, Sericea lespedeza, birdsfoot trefoil, queen anne’s lace, etc. all need to be dealt with as quickly and thoroughly as possible. This is done largely through spot treating measures like spraying herbicide, spot mowing, hoeing or digging up the invasive plants before they go to seed. To stay on top of this it’s critically important to spend some time in your prairie every 2-3 weeks of the growing season, take note of how healthy the prairie looks, and then take action as needed. Putting in this sweat equity will transform your prairie landscape into a wildlife paradise. 

As the strategies and techniques prescribed for land management have evolved in recent years, a major improvement has been the emphasis on using native grassland habitat to maximize biodiversity and wildlife carrying capacity. Choosing to do so means you may not see the rapid benefits of invasive shortcuts that come with planting giant miscanthus, egyptian wheat, or pampas grass, but if you are patient and willing to put in the effort your property will reward your local ecosystem and you with innumerable long term benefits that your neighbors will want to experience on their own land.