Text Box: Knowing that Iowa has retained less than one percent of its native prairie landscape is a depressing thought. It does however give a person that much more initiative to preserve one of the most endangered ecosystems on earth. The upside of remnant prairie being such a rarity is observing the feelings that surface in landowners when they discover their property contains such an important piece of Iowa’s heritage and ecological significance. Most of Iowa’s remnants reside in small parcels of an acre or less. Remnants can be a forgotten corner of a farmstead where past family members once mowed hayed or grazed, but never turned the plow loose. These areas are often forgotten and end up being known as the plum thicket behind the house where pheasant hunters are the most common and possibly only visitor. Pioneer cemeteries, abandoned railroad right-of-ways, and steep hillsides also hold our forgotten relics. A lot of people may be surprised where you can find patches of our past. It’s just a matter of knowing what to look for. If no known native plantings have occurred, there are good indicator species that can not Text Box: only provide possible remnant status, but also previous land use history. Prairie plants have in short evolved from the ground up, utilizing massive root systems and below ground growing points. These root systems often give rise to the persistence that some prairie plants display in their oftentimes harsh conditions. In the famous book A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold describes the arduous and eventually unsuccessful attempt that is made to transplant a compass plant whose roots reached deeper than the tired conservationist could dig. These and many other root systems enable the plant to persist through decades of heavy grazing and haying. One thing compass plant does not tolerate is tillage. Destruction of the root leads to the destruction of the plant. While compass plant may not be a fail safe way to rule out past tillage as a whole, it can rule out continuous, long-term tillage. It can also point to a lack of past herbicide use. Other plants have ways of resisting heavy grazing and may actually increase in abundance. In rangeland systems, these plants are known as increasers. pleasure but are an integral Text Box: Identifying Remnant Prairie

Inside this issue:

Volume 3, Issue 1

JUly 2007
Text Box: Loess Hills Conservation Text Box: Newsletter Funded By: the Loess Hills Alliance, Mills County Soil & Water Conservation District, West Pottawattamie County Soil & Water Conservation District, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources

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