Prairie in Progress by Lia Heppermann, MDC Wildlife Biologist

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Reprinted from:

St. Louis Regional Newsletter
MDC

June 2011

Visitors to the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area will notice many fields planted with native warm season grasses and wildflowers, or forbs.  This is an effort to restore, or more accurately reconstruct, the prairie once known as Howell’s Prairie, which was a part of this area many years ago.  It may be surprising to know that prior to European settlement more than one- third of the Missouri landscape was prairie.  With settlement however, the prairie was grazed and plowed and converted to farmsteads and agriculture. Additionally, settlers began to control the fires causing the prairie to gradually give way to trees.  Few examples remain today of undisturbed, unplowed remnant prairie, and those that do remain are invaluable to our natural heritage.  Instead, we are often left with the difficult prospect of restoring degraded prairie or trying to recreate prairie habitat where it once existed; both of which are poor substitutes for the real thing.  Natural prairie communities are filled with a diverse array of plant and animal life which unfortunately do not respond to the “if you build it, they will come” hypothesis.  Ecological restoration is more complicated than that.  In spite of this, doing nothing is not an option either.


Which brings us back to the reconstruction project at Busch.  Progress has been slow and there are many challenges.  Currently nearly 200 acres have been planted with seed from Missouri seed suppliers.  They provide seed that is native to, and grown in,  Missouri and therefore adapted to the local climate and its rainfall, soils, insects, and other herbivores.  Patience For more information on prairies visit:
http://mdc.mo.gov/landwater-care/plant-management/prairie-grassland-and-field-managment or http://www.moprairie.org is key since it takes many years before the wildflowers will bloom.  During the first few years, plants are developing deep root systems to survive drought, fire and grazing which were characteristic elements of natural prairies.  Controlling invasive exotic plants and implementing fire are additional challenges.  Unfortunately, herbicide is necessary to control sericea lespedeza and other invasive
plants.  The challenge is to remove one and leave the other.  Fire is implemented as often as possible to stimulate the growth and vigor of the grasses and forbs.  Happily, we are making progress, and when you visit
you can find pale purple coneflower, round-headed bush clover, purple prairie clover, lead plant, rattlesnake
master, rosinweed, compass plant and many others blooming among the tall grasses.