Western Slope Native Plant Meeting DRAFT Minutes
February 11-12, 2014, Clarion Inn, Grand Junction
PDFs of PowerPoint Presentation are available at: http://upartnership.org/native-plant-program/2014-nativeplant-workshop/
TUESDAY February 11
Kathy See – Uncompahgre Partnership Native Plant Coordinator - Welcome and meeting logistics
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Jim Garner- PJ and Desert Shrub Habitat Coordinator, Colorado Parks & Wildlife Delta Seed
Warehouse Update
o Opened about 1 year ago. Partnership with Uncompahgre Partnership: buying contract seed,
mainly local Uncompahgre Plateau ecotypes. Jim can give people some seed to people/agencies
if it helps wildlife habitat (there’s no mechanism to buy & sell seed yet). The warehouse is a
place to store plant materials from various agencies and groups. Jim manages the warehouse. It’s
open by request, e.g., when seed is coming in. Have a seed mixer; can handle about 10 bags
worth of seed at a time. Took 1 day to mix 2,500 pounds of seed. Can mix seed for about a 10acre project at one time. No cost to mix if it’s not too much seed, or if you can provide help. Let
Jim know if you need a small quantity of seed mixed. There is lots of room in the warm storage
area, about 3,000 square feet (got to 85 degrees last summer on the hottest days; doesn’t get
below freezing). Cold storage is pretty full right now. Currently, they’re not charging to store
seed. Also provides a place to store and work on equipment. Seed testing: not required if giving
the seed away. The seed’s pretty new, but they’ll need to get a testing program going. Working
on a list of what’s available.
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Trevor Balzer- Sagebrush Habitat Coordinator, CPW Using the Truax drill
o Trying to use native seed. Talked to Mike Pellant at the BLM in Boise, ID, Steve Parr and others
for ideas. Success is a function of seed and seedbed characteristics along with climate and biotic
influences. Need to have weeds under control. Seed germination and establishment is dependent
on # of seeds in favorable microsites, e.g., “safe sites”.
o Mainly deals with sagebrush and that habitat.
o Strive to bury the seeds at the proper depth in a firm seedbed (sagebrush seed pressed into the
soil).
o Rough Rider drill: much less seed disturbance. Uses an imprinter. Grass rows and forb
rows/shrub rows. Greater emergence of broadcast species. Emergence of drilled species was
similar between this drill and older type.
o Did a trial in Meeker at the plant center with the Truax drill. Looks really good: sagebrush,
natives, small burnet, etc. came up.
o Now have an On-The-Go no till drill that plants on 7” rows. Purchased two. 10 foot, 8,000pound drill. Didn’t work well to plant mountain brome—need to run through fluffy box. Very
flexible drill. Trevor likes it.
o Got 600+ acres planted around Craig and Meeker.
o Can move front coulters and back packers up and down separately.
o Limitations: landowners want to do 20’ at a time.
 Terrain
 Topography
 Time: 5 acres/hour; 7-8 acres per hour if 2 drills hooked up.
o Aerial Broadcast Seeding: saves time and money
o Plan your projects and use the drills on the most expensive projects. Also used some Great Plains
drills for alfalfa, timothy.
o Use Rocky Mountain beeplant and sunflower as modified cover crop to get shade on the ground,
and sterile hybrids in small amounts.
o Have included some super absorbent polymer in the drills (even though you’re not supposed to).
It’s working so far.
o Plans to experiment with mycorrhizae.
o Had to spray for weeds more than one time.
o Has seen a lot of jointed goat grass come in with straw mulch. Wood straw: if it’s proven to work
or if the cost goes down, he’d use it.
1:45-2:45 PM
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Danielle Johnston- CPW Using super-absorbent polymer in habitat restoration
o Polymer in a salt with potassium for crop uses. Absorbs 400 times its weight in water and slowly
releases the water. It’s pretty expensive. Helps when transplanting big trees.
o Gas fields: small acreages. 2008 experiments on simulated well pads in Piceance Basin. You
have to bury it, since it degrades in light. Lasts 2 – 7 years if buried.
o For lawns, they recommend 200 lbs/acre.
o Competition experiment started 2009. Compared cheatgrass vs. perennial wheatgrasses.
 Used Luquasorb: use polymers with acrilimide (OK for crops)
 Sugar-sized granule. It’s denser than the seed; didn’t stay in suspension. Rice hulls didn’t
help.
 Sage site 60 lbs/acre rate
 Wagonroad Site 270 lbs/acre
 Better establishment/density when used polymer. Helped at first. No significant effects
later for perennials. Less cheatgrass where they applied the polymer.
 Horsethief Canyon SWA, Fruita area: arid sandy soils, 7 acres, monoculture of
cheatgrass. One area: pitted surface + polymer. Made a pothole seeder. Treated with 4 oz.
of Plateau in August. Pitting and seeding in October.
 22pls seed mix with many different species. 2-4 pls of rhizomatous grasses. Put product
on 2 of 4 polygons.
 Put polymer in a different box. Tramfloc: comes in bigger granules. It stayed in
suspension better. Just found out it’s not approved for crops.
 Measured soil moisture. Was a little more in treated plots.
 Chain drag didn’t work to incorporate the polymer into the soil.
 More seedlings in June, but everything died by Sept.
 New study in the works.
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Kara Dohrenwend- Rim to Rim Nursery Containerized Plants in Revegetation
Projects and Developments at the Mayberry Plant Propagation Center in Utah
 Revegetation planning and implementation contractor in Moab for 15 years. Also devegetation, e.g.,
tamarisk.
 Grow their own containerized stock. Use local materials.
 Rim to Rim Restoration: nonprofit. Mayberry property 16 miles from Moab: Native Plant
Propagation Center. CO Plateau-sourced materials. 30 acres. Put in a shelterbelt, growing
containerized plants in this year.
 Containerized plant material: takes a minimum of 12-13 weeks to grow a cone of a fast-growing
species. 60 weeks to grow some plants. Sometimes it takes a year.
 Costs and Benefits; how and where, workhorse species, etc.: see pdf of PowerPoint
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Longstem planting: auger a hole that might be 5 feet deep. 7:1 shoot to root ratio.
Had a BLM fire crew with a pump to water in stock.
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Shannon Hatch-Tamarisk Coalition What's Taking Root at the Tamarisk Coalition in 2014
o Working to develop locally-sourced riparian revegetation materials.
o Have a list of plant availability.
o Pollinator Garden south of botanical garden in Grand Junction. Some artistic-looking pollinator
structures.
o Give Shannon your input for restoration videos, or you can be in the video.
o Cottonwood suitability study: some sites have too much salinity or the soil moisture isn’t right
for growing cottonwoods.
o Tamarisk Coalition Research & Management Conference Feb. 18-20
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Steve Woodis- NRCS Using non-natives as sacrifice species to help native
species establishment
 See slides.
 Used a masticating machine: hydroax to remove piñon pines. Causes some soil disturbance.
 Olathe Spray Service did the aerial seeding. Dormant seeding.
 Usually do the treatments in the winter months, so they don’t attract Ips beetles.
 Put in non-native “ice cream” plants—wildlife eat them more, so may save the natives.
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Christine Taliga- CO Plant Materials Specialist, NRCS How to determine your target native plant
community
o 26 Plant Materials Centers in the US. Closest is in Meeker, CO.
o This info will be out in a Technical Note shortly, will be on CO NRCS website:
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/co/home/
o Inventory a site before coming up with a prescription for restoration. Also find a reference site in
case the project site has been denuded.
o USDA Plants Database: try the Advanced Search feature: can search for precipitation, salinity
tolerance, etc.
o Rocky Mtn Herbarium: specimen database: can see locations where various species have been
collected. Can click on an area and it pulls up the specimen record. Says when it was fruiting and
flowering. Some records go back to the 1890s. Floristic Projects: collection sites, records:
everything that was identifiable is identified. Can download the data.
o SEINet: swbiodiversity.org/portal/index.php Pooled info from SW plant herbaria. Search
Collections. Can put in Locality Criteria and search. Get a species list and can download it.
 Flora Projects: e.g., CO Plateau. Can click on a species and you get a number of photos
of the plant and a description.
o Web Soil Survey: helps you figure soil info
o Ecological Site Description
o Cross reference among various resources to account for the plants that are no longer visual. They
create habitat for mycorrhizae for next successional species. Do your homework.
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Cara Gildar- FS Native Plant Materials on the San Juan Public Lands:
Status of Our Knowledge.
 Seed Zones: CO Plateau, Arizona/New Mexico Plateau, Arizona/New Mexico Mountains EPA
ecoregions
 Have a provisional Seed Transfer Zones Map: Grasses and Forbs based on temperature and
precipitation (see attached pdf)
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Strategies for Collection: went back through species lists from transects from range data
Species that were worth moving forward: (more info in slides)
o Jones’ pepperweed: grower’s loved it
o Sixweeks fescue: to quickly mask a disturbance
o Desert tobacco: smoke dependent germination
o Handsome Penstemon: P. lentus
o Purple threeawn: hard to clean the seeds
Still in the running:
 Wright’s deervetch
 Wooly locoweed
Also had a list of No-go species:
 Horsetail milkweed
 Indeterminate species in the Aster species
 New Mexico thistle, etc. (see slides for others: many were low-growing)
 CNGildar@fs.fed.us, 970-882-6854
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Steve Parr- Upper CO Environmental Plant Center Options for Native Plant Development
2. Origin or performance: 3 Models used at the Plant Center:
1. NPS: use site-specific materials, often small projects/sites.
 Average 4.5 years of seed yield
 Grass yields 123 lb/acre average
 Forb yields 33 lb/acre average (harvest some by hand)
 Site specific plants less yield compared to cultivars
 Pros and cons (see pdf of slides for details)
2. SCS/NRCS: more concerned with performance
3. BLM: targeted collections from specific sites (over a larger area) over three years. Worked with
field staff to learn where there are good collections. Testing concurrent with increase
 Names of species in slides
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Energy industry representatives panel: Rob Raley- WPX, Mike Shoemaker- WPX, Bryan WhiteleyEnCana
4. Most successful plants they’ve work with and why?
 Bryan: #1 concern is EPA’s requirement for storm water management. It’s a revegetation
paradigm and it’s about soil stabilization. Uses cultivars that perform consistently. BLM:
requiring more forbs and shrubs. Likes very diverse mixes: with some species that do
well when it’s wet and others do well when it’s dry.
 Has a PJ mix; never comes up the same way twice (see end of the notes for the
mix).
 Mike: landowners have specific desires in some cases.
5. Most difficult species; didn’t work:
 Soil conditions dictate seeding
 New construction: gets seeded right away
 Interim: usually seed in the summer
 Final reclamation: do it when it will work best
 Mike: has many different mixes based on the specific characteristics of the
sites/microclimates. Always takes a soil sample first. On some sites he adds biotic earth
(mainly peat moss) or fertilizer.
 Bryan: water conservation is important. Surface roughening helps. He likes straw mulch.
Micropocking.
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On powdery sites, he broadcasts seed then runs a sheep’s foot over it.
Straw mulch: Bryan: crimp or tack it depending on conditions. Mike does both, 2 tons
straw per acre. Line trim weed heads off. Still cheaper than wood mulch. Has seen some
jointed goat grass in straw from some contractors—no longer uses those contractors.
Uses it on slopes 3 to 1 or less. Uses a hydraulic application on steeper slopes.
Mike: jointed goat grass, it was probably there in the past, but people didn’t know what it
was. In some places it keeps out cheat grass. Mike’s threshold is 2 to 1 slope for using
straw mulch.
Wood mulch: blows out pretty good, have to feed the machine more—push it. With 2
tons per acre: there was a lot of open space as opposed to straw mulch. Works better if 3
times the amount—gets expensive. Stays in place better if it’s windy. Doesn’t move
downhill as readily as straw, but it will float in high water.
Annual reports from gas monitoring go to BLM.
Mike: often fence off the site for 3 years. Bryan always does.
Hunter Mesa in Rifle: all sites that weren’t fenced have been denuded by cows.
Rob: Likes to talk up front with people/ranchers. He does more habitat improvement
projects: may defer grazing or shift livestock to another area using water developments.
Bryan has used drift fences on final road reclaims to push the cattle into new topography
to keep the out of the right-of-way.
Allotment owners can defer use for resource protection
Deer, elk and bears sometimes use reclaimed areas heavily. They like newly germinated
plants—more palatable.
Need to up seeding rates if seeding during bird migration.
Rob: uses Steve Monsen as a consultant; he said get rid of cheatgrass. Grand Valley
Cheatgrass Coalition. Teamed with George Beck with CSU on dealing with cheatgrass.
Tested 5 different grasses, forbs and shrubs with 6 different herbicides. Study went well.
Landmark seemed to be the product of choice. Results should be out soon. Will have
some good sites to look at in the next couple years. Have chained some sites—good on
rocky sites.
Phased habitat restoration is effective, especially if you have weeds. Do different
processes over time. Can always thin sites out to add in forbs and shrubs later.
WEDNESDAY February 12
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Wayne Anderson- Utah Crop Improvement Association and Utah State University (Conducts seed
certification, wildland seed) Real Reclamation Requires Proactive Planting
o Why they came up with the proposal: Want to be proactive, not reactive. To get money you have
to represent a large group of people to get the attention of Congress. People like Farm Bureau,
Cattleman’s, Wildlife/Conservation groups. Need a plan that addresses the problems of the
landscape, so we can reclaim the land.
o Great Basin Initiative: not much to show for the effort, because we haven’t established the
market.
o Keep specific species on required seed lists, even if it’s not currently available. If people keep
asking growers for a species, they may plant it.
o If the money was approved, how would it be dispursed? Could go through all agencies. State
agencies have less red tape—maybe go to the Western Governor’s Association. Would be good
to flesh out the model. Also need to address the private land issue.
DISCUSSION TOPICS
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Fire Rehab, many natives come back on their own, mulching:
o Watershed Side (Utah): Federal agencies need emergency stabilization of the soil. Can augment
with native seed. There are some local biases; some people don’t want sagebrush even if seed’s
provided free. UT Range Trend monitoring project—have 10 years of data on many treatments.
Results depend on the site and treatment.
o CO Front Range: slender wheatgrass, bottlebrush squirreltail are used. Jeff likes to focus on
wood straw and short-term species, since longer-term native species are coming back on their
own.
o Crested wheatgrass does a disservice to the ecosystem in CO.
o BLM CO: try to use natives. Pine Ridge Fire: broke it into zones. On tough sites used crested
wheat. Had other mixes without crested for other sites. Flew a sterile crop on; timing was poor,
so didn’t get a good establishment. If it doesn’t come up immediately, it’ll sit in the seed back.
Then if get a wet year, it will compete with your natives.
o NRCS: put in annuals and treat weeds at first, then go back in with natives later. Sterile hybrids
come up quickly—more in vegetation, not into roots. They do 3 years of monitoring.
o Kara D: Tamarisk monitoring: native species are slow to come back. Could do monitoring every
few years; then could make a small adjustment 5 years in.
o CSU’s done analysis of soil under crested. There’s no mycorrhizae.
o Chris T: NRCS is moving more to wood shred/straw—less chance of weeds than certified weed
free straw. In the arid west, it doesn’t degrade very quickly. Still there 4-5 years later. Costs 2-3
times more than straw (have to use more).
o When masticate, wood chips sit there (even when mixed with topsoil). Bryan: Doesn’t break
down on the surface; only in a storage situation. Some good response in UT in sagebrush; it’s
affected by the density of the wood chips. Kara: sagebrush did really well in thick chips (Russian
olive) one year—sometimes it’s good to stop and wait. Sand dropseed also did well in some
areas. Native perennial grasses, lupines and globe mallows come back well.
o EWP Funds: NRCS works with a local sponsor, e.g., city and gives them the funds.
o Rocky Mtn Arsenal restoration: slender wheatgrass worked the best as a cover crop; got rid of
crested wheat first.
o Ecological sites in the NRCS framework can be helpul if you can’t get a local soil sample. You
need to know the soils: $35 for a soil sample can save you a lot of money later.
o Look at functionality: early successional plants create the soil microfauna, which improves the
soil for future natives.
o Get success stories up to the national level.
Could wildland collections of seed be harming the local plant populations (by removing seed)?
o Kathy See: Fenced area at Billy Creek SWA: Collect cliff rose and sagebrush every year. No
reseeding on cliff rose, but it’s probably not adapted to the area. Sagebrush is doing very well,
lots of seedlings even though we collected seed. We’re probably spreading seed as we collect it.
o Wayne: collection probably helps the species, because you’re probably spreading the seed more
than would happen naturally. He hasn’t seen degradation of the sites. Climate/precip affect the
plants. It’s more of a problem if people collect early before the seed is ready; they damage the
plants more. They’ve put in measures to stop that including law enforcement. Dealers only take
seed if there’s official documentation.
o Chris T, NRCS: seed collection tech note: on how much seed to collect, etc.
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o BLM: need a collection permit, has 5-page document on restrictions on collecting. Seeds of
Success has very strict guidelines. FS requires a permit. Utah requires a permission slip if collect
on private property; not in CO. Some people in CO use UT’s process. No collecting on NPS.
Monitoring and adaptive management.
o Julia Christiansen: BLM Oil and Gas side: can require monitoring and mitigation (sometimes the
operators work with CPW. If it’s built into the proposal, BLM can enforce it).
o WPX: annual monitoring on about ½ of his sites/year and annual report. Line intercept, cover,
species inventory (wants genus and species). Takes 2 - 2.5 weeks, 5 people to do 200 sites; runs
about $80,000. Have used: Habitat Management, Cedar Creek, Westwater.
o Could we pool projects among various agencies and put out a request for a bid? Could help if
people don’t have time to do the contracting. Money could be funneled through Uncompahgre
Com (the UP’s nonprofit), and they could hire the contractor. Could share the results.
o For grants, maybe call the monitoring a project rather than monitoring.
o Trevor: CPW Meeker: around 50 transects plus 90 photo points. About $30,000/year. Brown’s
transects in the south in forest. Wildlife Society Meeting: lots of research has been done. We
should pool the collective monitoring data that’s been done from UT, Universities, etc. A lot of
info is already out there.
o Also need new monitoring, because new things come up, like bulbous bluegrass.
o UT Range Trend Monitoring: started in the 1980s. 700 sites with long-term habitat monitoring,
check every 5 years. Need some standardization and a system in place to get the #s to people,
e.g., universities, so it can be analyzed.
o Rob Raley: will do a baseline for each treatment and monitor them. They are learning from them.
o Need long-term data sets (could be photo points—they have impact; UT photos: Range Trend
Utah, www.wildlife.Utah.gov/range).
On-the-ground work: what’s working?
o SE Utah Riparian Partnership: DNR, BLM, landowners etc. is an information-sharing group
They talk about what happened with various projects and go out in the field. They create a theme
for each meeting.
o The herbicide Plateau worked for a few years, and now it doesn’t seem to be working.
o Kara D: before you start a project, decide what’s your end goal. Look at your big picture goals.
o This meeting—is it useful? Yes, but don’t let it get too big or you can’t have discussions. Could
have poster sessions. Dec-Feb is a good time. Would be nice to have it in Utah. Maybe a case
study presentation instead of a field trip. Mix up presentations and discussions—some of both
each day.
o There’s a Reveg conference in Fort Collins every 2 years.
o UP held a PJ conference in 2004 with field trips. Other states do conferences like this, too. Don’t
need to duplicate them.
o Give info to Kathy about meetings and field trips to share with others.
o John Rizza, NRCS: agency people should show up to private landowner events. The landowners
get benefits by listening to agency folks. Give John info about your events for their website.
How relic is relic? What time period are we trying to bring a site back to?
o Can sometimes find photos from the 1930s or 1950s.
o BLM perspective: depends somewhat on where the site is, e.g., higher elevation or lower where
there’s a sea of cheatgrass around you. Latter case, may just want a native. Don’t try to grow a
grassland in a desert shrub community. Sometimes there are conflicting regulations or
perspectives.
o Use the past as a guideline, but need to consider the end goal. Bryan: depends on the RMP.
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o Clare Hydock: We can’t go back to the olden days, because we have cheatgrass, climate change,
etc. They’re getting away from specifics in NEPA.
o Kara: Need to look at the plant community, may be able to get some local natives back but not
others, like blackbrush.
o Oil and Gas: Bryan: stormwater—grasses are easy. Achieves those goals, then he can make
changes. Work in phases. Guidelines come from EPA. Once you get over 6” of topsoil, you get
grasses.
Cheatgrass seems to be migrating up in elevation. Fire, sagebrush, cheatgrass—cheat is winning.
o What’s the status of Ann Kennedy’s work on bacterial biocontrol?
o Climate change has affected its range, since cheat is cold limited. Higher elevations are getting
warmer.
o Susan Myers out of Provo; black fingers of death—not going anywhere.
o Someone in NM is working some bacteria.
o Cows are a good bio control in some places.
How do we get the growers to step up? How do we create the market? How to stimulate demand?
o Agency people need to let growers know what species they are/may be interested in.
o Price points: what’s the most people are willing to pay for native forbs?
 Kara: fire people may be more interested in cost savings
 Chris T: some seeds are very expensive per pound, but get lots of seeds, e.g., scarlet
globemallow. Indeterminate: get 3 harvests/year.
 What forbs will be successful in the seeding effort? Blue flax grows well.
 Jeff: Regionally developed, broad spectrum seed mixes might get used. Would like a real
Artemesia ludoviciana.
 Different agencies and the UP have mixes.
 Chris T. says sulfur-flowered buckwheat works. NRCS has a plant guide: it can be drilled
or broadcast. They have 35 demo projects they monitor every year. If you give NRCS
seed, they’ll monitor it.
 If agencies could come up with an average seed need per year, buy it and store it, then it’s
available on a bad fire year, other years can use it for wildlife. Have a seed bank in your
seed warehouse. Could be shifted from year to year to where the greatest need is. Could
look at 10-year average.
 Wayne: said they’d need 850,000 lbs. of sagebrush in ID; only bought 150,000 lbs. Shelf
life varies by species; some forbs are finicky. Indian rice grass gets better after 7 years.
 Bigger seeds store easier and last longer; smaller seeds don’t last as long. Plants that put
out a lot of seed, the seeds don’t last as long. Annual seeds tend to last longer. With
containerized sagebrush, it’s best if you plant the seed the day you collect it.
Competing views between different agencies and landowners, e.g., do we want sagebrush. Where we
use different materials. Some guidelines/framework so we know what everyone’s doing. How do we get
landowners to understand, e.g., islands of variety. Who’s doing what, where and how.
o Need to consider endangered species.
o The canopy cover has an effect. If too decadent, there may not be much understory. If it’s winter
range, the sagebrush may be fine if it’s tall and thick. Look at the landscape perspective, and
consider all species, not just sage-grouse. Need diversity.
o Trevor: depends on the end goal—forage production, it pays to get rid of sagebrush. Wildlife
standpoint (GUSG and mule deer winter range): need sagebrush. Talks to landowners about the
value of wildlife, e.g., deer or elk on the property for hunting. Once a few neighbors see success,
people will ask CPW for help.
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o Pipeline reveg on private: many people say they don’t want sagebrush. If we educate
landowners, they may change what they request. Need the photos and evidence.
Chris T.: training in Logan, UT bee lab people. SW corner of CO: hotspot for pollinators in the world.
Keep pollinator habitat in mind—little islands are important.
Leigh would like to put together a short video to help create demand for natives. Please contact her with
ideas for partners, funding, etc.
Thanks for your participation!
See next pages and attachments for PJ seed mixes.
Piñon Juniper Seed Mix
Here is the seed mix I use on private ground in PJ’s down to lower elevations.
Depending on the reclamation objectives and soil conditions I will sometimes add forbs and shrubs usually
without reducing the grass quantities.
The crappier the soil the more I add shrubs.
Shrubs like Shadscale compete very well with these grasses in poor soil conditions, sage not so much.
If there is more than 6” of loamy topsoil shrubs don’t compete well with this seed mix at this PLS.
I make sure, visually we are getting one seed per square inch.
The mix meets my soil stabilization needs.
The mix keeps landowners with grazing animals satisfied.
The mix has shown itself to be tolerant of mechanical and chemical weed management.
In dryland areas adjacent to irrigation, weeds from the irrigated fields can out compete this mix even after its
established.
I’ve never seen it come up the same way twice.
However, as you can imagine the wheatgrasses typically dominate the composition.
- Bryan Whiteley, EnCana
Common Name
Scientific Name
Pounds Pure Live Seed
(PLS) per acre
Grasses
Idaho fescue
Festuca idahoensis
1.0
Western wheatgrass
Agropyron smithii
3.0
Indian ricegrass
Oryzopsis hymenoides
.25
Slender wheatgrass
Elymus trachycaulus ssp.
4.0
Pubescent wheatgrass
Agropyron trichophorum
3.0
Galleta
Hilaria jamesii
2.0
Sideoats grama
Bouteloua curtipendula
3.0
Thickspike wheatgrass
Elymus lanceolatus ssp.
2.0
Perennial ryegrass
Lolium perenne
.75
Alkali sacaton
Sporobolus airoides
.25
TOTAL PLS
Rates recommended are for drill seeding. Double rates for broadcast seeding or Hydroseeding.
19.25
Experimental Mixes in PJ
In the Spring of 2012 I seeded the attached mixes on a well site situated in burned PJ woodland system.
The purpose of the seeding project was to see if I could establish greater plant diversity on a location by seeding
differently for aspect, slope and concentrated flows.
The earthwork was manipulated to provide the later.
The topsoil was also spread at different depths trying to match the juxtaposed landscape.
I also wanted to see how the mixes affected the texture and contrast of the site for visuals.
I did not intend for everything in the seed mix to thrive but only to give it a push and have something long enough to
evaluate potential.
2012 was awful for germination and the weeds dominated.
I did not reseed in the fall of 2012 because I wanted to see what germinated the following year.
I only used line trimmers to deadhead weeds, no chemicals.
By July 2013, Rocky Mountain Beeplant was doing very well and I had plants over 4’ tall.
It was most prevalent on the leeward military crest of the ridges, which equates to average topsoil depth, afternoon
shade and wind protection during germination & growth.
Most native will do well in the same spot but the Beeplant dominated.
However, its only value was as a pollinator and soil stabilizer.
Visually it offered no texture or contrast in the middle or back ground.
Also in 2013 I had a lot more germination and more variety.
However, the quantity was not enough to get me out of my CDPHE compliance fast enough.
So, in the late fall of 2013, prior to the snow fall I rebroadcast the same mixes.
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Brian Whiteley, EnCana