Tag: site preparation

How To Find Your Soil Type

Posted on by Tuula Rebhahn

An important component of any habitat restoration plan is the soil type. Knowing what types of soil are present on the property will help you decide which plants will do best in each location. When it comes to healthy plants, having the right soil conditions is about as important as siting the plant correctly for optimal sunlight (shade or full sun?) and water (dry or moist?).

Fortunately, the USDA’s Web Soil Survey exists to impart data already collected by the USDA to members of the public. It’s as easy as going to the website and entering your address (plus a couple extra steps). Let’s walk through it together:

How to Get Your USDA Soil Report

  1. Navigate to https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm
  2. In the drop-down Address field on the left, enter your address.
  3. Use the AOI button in the “Area of Interest (AOI)” tab to select the area for which you would like the soil information.
The Area of Interest is selected
  1. Once you’ve selected your Area of Interest, click the yellow Soil Map tab. Click “Printable version” in the upper-right corner to save or print this map.
Soil map of the Area of Interest
  1. Now, click the “Soil data Explorer” tab, then click the “Soil Reports” tab in the ribbon below. On the left-hand menu, click the drop-down arrows for “AOI Inventory”, then “Component Text Descriptions”. Then click “View Soil Report”. A description of each of your soil components will appear below the map.

Seeding Your Site: Methods, Rates and More!

Posted on by Tuula Rebhahn

So far in our Restoration Best Practices blog post series, we’ve covered Developing an Ecological Restoration Plan and Site Preparation, which is particularly important if you’re planning to use native seeds to restore your site. Whether it’s a prairie, wetland, forest or another type of ecosystem, the survival and success of your native seeds is entirely dependent on having low competition from non-native plants and nice, loose soil in which to put down roots. We encourage you to go back and read those two posts if you haven’t yet. (Remember, a Restoration Plan is required if you are buying seeds from RNPP this fall!)

In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the reasons for using native seeds vs starts and how to choose seeds for your site. Then we’ll move into some of the technical details of creating a seed mix and introduce our calculator tool for figuring out how much seed to buy. 

Why Seeds?

Growing plants from seed is more work than buying plants already established in containers. So why do it? Here are a few reasons:

  • Diversity. Here in the Rogue Valley, growing from seed gives you a much wider array of species to choose from. Not all plants are going to be available in containers.
  • Success. Some plants don’t survive transplanting very well, and plants actually have the remarkable ability to adapt to a site as they grow. So, the moment a plant puts down roots in your soil, it is learning about the local conditions and setting itself up for faster, stronger, healthier growth.
  • $avings. It’s much cheaper to grow a thousand plants yourself from seed, than buy all those plants in containers!
  • Fun. You’ll learn much more about the native plant life cycle by watching them grow from seed. There’s nothing like seeding a site in fall, then coming back in the spring and seeing the brown earth covered in green!

Selecting Your Seeds

In restoration work, it can often be difficult to decide what kind of plant community to establish, especially in sites long dominated by non-native species. It’s important not only to look toward the past, understanding what plants might have grown in your site (perhaps prior to the disturbance that caused non-natives to move in), but also toward the future. How might conditions change, and what plants are best suited to adapt to those changes – be it drought, flood or fire? 

Seeds should be selected based on your restoration goals. Are you creating a pollinator meadow or trying to stabilize a streambank? Hopefully, you’ve already laid out these goals in your Restoration Plan. Your seed mix, plus any remaining weed or native seeds that survived the site preparation process, will be what determines the type of plant community that comes up in the spring (or fall if your seeding happens in the spring – see our Site Prep article for a discussion on the best time to plant your seeds). 

Before you purchase seed, be sure to do some research on the plant and the conditions in which it likes to grow. This way, you can avoid planting seeds that will not be successful in your site.

Seeding Methods

Sean & Lilia hand seeding and raking a restoration site after thinning and controlled burning

There are two common ways of actually getting the seed on the ground: broadcasting by hand and drill seeding using a tractor.

  • Broadcasting. Best for smaller sites (half an acre or less). To broadcast seed, simply walk in a regular pattern across your site, throwing by hand and attempting to distribute it as evenly as possible. Or, use a “belly-crank” seeder. In either case, broadcasted seed should be distributed at a higher seeding rate than if using a drill seeder. Because broadcasting doesn’t actually bury the seed in the soil, these seeds have a slightly lower rate of success, and may be eaten by birds and field mice! On smaller scales, this effect can be mitigated by raking, or rolling over the seed to press it in. 
  • Drill seeding. A drill seeder pulled behind a tractor is a fantastic way to distribute seeds evenly and get them in the soil without turning it over (bringing buried weed seeds to the surface where they can germinate). A seed drill doesn’t do any actual drilling; it can be more accurately described as placing the seeds underground, at a rate and a depth specified by the user. 

Belly crank seeders and rollers can usually be rented out by the day from a local farm supply store, home improvement store or equipment rental business. Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District has a drill seeder for rent.

Tractor pulled seed drill

Seeding Rate Calculations

By choosing a specific seeding rate and sticking with it, we can introduce scientific accuracy to the art of restoration. We start with a target seeding rate and work from there. 

What is seeding rate? Simply put, it’s the number of seeds you need to apply to a given area to achieve the desired plant coverage. Most restoration projects use a seeding rate of between 30-60 seeds/square foot. Knowing your seeding rate will help you determine the number of pounds or ounces of seeds to purchase.

What’s the ideal seeding rate for your site? It depends on your goals, seeding method and site conditions:

  • At the lower end of the range (30 seeds/sq. ft.), you’ll be seeding a site that has been well prepared (no weed seeds; flat, smooth soil surface), and has excellent soil. You have a seed drill or some other way of accurately distributing the seed, and you want plant coverage to be somewhat sparse (perhaps for bee nesting habitat). 
  • At the higher end of the range (60 seeds/sq. ft.), you are trying to seed heavily to outcompete weeds that survived your site prep, there’s a slope or other factors that could cause seeds to wash or blow away, and your goal is to have dense plant coverage at the site.

Now let’s talk about your seed mix. You don’t want a monoculture of one seed in your restoration site, but a mix of different species — it goes back to that plant community idea we were discussing earlier. Before you can figure out how much of each seed to buy, you’ll need to decide on what percentage of the total mix that each type of seed will occupy. For example, if your goal is to restore a native grassland meadow, you might shoot for 50% Danthonia californica (California oatgrass). 

Finally, the seeding rate is dependent on the number of seeds per pound, which is different for each species. If you plan to purchase seeds from the RNPP Seed Sale, you can find the number of seeds per pound on the species description page or here in this handy table. 

How to Use the Calculator

We created this spreadsheet as a quick method of calculating the quantity of seed you need to buy. You’ll need to first input the following data:

  1. Your target seeding rate (# of seeds/square foot)
  2. The number of acres to be seeded
  3. The names and number of seeds per pound of each species you want to include in your seed mix (seeds/lb can be found HERE or on the species description page in the RNPP seed sale).
  4. The percentage of the seed mix that species will occupy 
  5. The cost per pound for each species

Here is what the calculator will give you after you enter the data above:

  1. How many pounds of seed you’ll need for each of the species in your mix
  2. The individual seeding rate for each species in your mix.
  3. The cost per species 
  4. The total cost of your seed mix

Ready to get started? Download the spreadsheet by clicking here and give it a go!

—

Tuula Rebhahn has spent the summer as Ecological Science Intern with The Understory Initiative. When she’s not out in the field counting plants, she’s a freelance writer and editor. Connect with her on Facebook or LinkedIn!

Restoration Best Practices: Developing an Ecological Restoration Plan

Posted on by Lilia Letsch

Are you planning on engaging in ecological restoration on your land? If so, an important first step is to develop a plan. It doesn’t have to be complex, but it is important to outline your plans, methods, and timeline so that you can keep on track and do the best you can for the area to be restored. Another reason to have an ecological restoration plan in place is to be able to share information with any agencies that you might be looking for support from. Additionally, the Rogue Native Plant Partnership’s annual native seed sale (next occurring in Fall 2020) requires seed buyers to have a basic restoration plan in place so that we know the hard-to-come-by seed is going to be used productively. 

Below we have laid out the information that is useful to have in your restoration plan. We encourage you to use this opportunity to learn as much about your land as you can – about the soil, plants, historical impacts, wildlife habitat potential, and anything else you can dive into – it’s a great way to get more connected to your land and be able to do your best in enhancing plant and wildlife biodiversity. You can also download an example restoration plan here (Word document).

Introduction to the land:

  • Location of land – the address, and the location on the landscape (hill slope, valley floor, wetland, etc)
  • Size of restoration site
  • Soil type (read our guide: How to Find Your Soil Type)
  • Ecoregion (find here: https://www.roguenativeplants.org/interactive-oregon-ecoregions-map/)
  • Habitats present (eg. riparian, woodlands, grasslands) and other main features (house site, road, pasture)
  • Map showing land (eg. screenshot from Google Maps, MyMaps, hand drawn map)
  • Relevant land use history
  • Brief description of specific area to be restored

Details of area/s of land to be restored (if more than one area, write up each set of details separately):

  • Location of area to be restored within land parcel (add a map if possible)
  • Current condition of area to be restored
  • List weed and native plant species – you can use apps like Google Lens and iNaturalist to help with identification.
  • List current and potential impacts on area to be restored (eg. weed drift from neighbors, too much sunlight on riparian zone) 
  • Describe restoration goals (eg. I want to remove the weeds from the creek banks and replant with natives to create shade for the water, or, I want to remove invasive grasses from my woodlands and increase the number of native grass and herb species that will benefit native pollinators)
  • Describe methods to be used in restoring area & timeline for each part of the process. Click on the links below for more information on each process. 
  • Timeline for every restoration phase

Any special considerations that need to be accounted for, eg.:

  • Oregon Dept. Fish & Wildlife plans required for certain riparian zones
  • Historical sites that may require protection

Additions:

  • Include list of observed native and weed plant species
  • Include list of observed wildlife on land
  • Include any relevant photos – eg. photos of area to be restored. Make sure to take after photos! 

Useful Documents: the Rogue Native Plant Partnership Resources Library is a fantastic place to learn more about a range of topics related to ecological restoration, from weed removal to harvesting native seed to growing native plants in containers, and much more. Here are a few documents we thought might be particularly useful for when you are writing an ecological restoration plan:

An Introduction to Using Native Plants in Restoration Projects

Posted on by Lilia Letsch

Author: US Environmental Protection Agency Date: 2002

This introductory document covers topics including: why use native plants?, planning a native plant project, site evaluation, choosing appropriate species, sourcing seeds and plants, preparing the site, weed control, planting techniques, caring for the site, monitoring, and more.

Download PDF: An Introduction to Using Native Plants in Restoration Projects (805 KB)

Restoration Best Practices: Site Preparation Methods

Posted on by Lilia Letsch

Welcome to the first post in our new series about best practices in ecological restoration. Through this series we hope to provide an accessible but thorough outline of the most important elements of implementing ecological restoration projects. Nearly everything to do with ecological restoration is complex, and there is still a lot of research being done into best practices, so it is important to keep an eye open for new information. Our goal is to outline the basics, and point you in the direction of more detailed information if you choose to go in depth on any topics.

We are starting our ecological restoration best practices series with a focus on site preparation. The importance of site preparation is often underestimated but can have a huge impact on the success of your restoration project. If you would like to go more in depth into a range of site preparation issues, we highly recommend the Xerces Society “Organic Site Preparation for Wildflower Establishment” document.

Timing

Seeds:

The time of year that you choose to disperse native plant seeds at your restoration site is extremely important. Native plant seeding usually happens either in the fall or spring in the Pacific Northwest. In Southern Oregon, fall is generally the best time to get seeds in the ground, as it gives time for in-ground stratification (cold treatment) and mimics the seeding cycles of most native plants. Early spring can also be a hard time to do site preparation if the ground is too wet, or covered in snow! But spring seeding is still a good option if site preparation is possible and the seeds you are using don’t require a deep winter stratification.

Containerized Plants:

Planting potted native plants is generally best done in the fall to provide time for settling and root growth, but early spring is an option if the ground is not too frozen and supplemental water can be provided if spring rains are not sufficient.

Surveying Your Site

Recording the plants that already exist on your site is a great opportunity to better know the plants, their needs, and ways the native plants can be protected during the site preparation phase of your project. You can just write down a list in a notebook, or keep a spreadsheet where you can update information about shifts in flowering, seeding and other interesting observations you make. It’s also a really good idea to keep a record of any weeds you can identify and get to know their lifecycles, best times of year to work on removing them, and the best practices for how to reduce their impact on your restoration site.

Weed Removal

Inadequate weed suppression can have massive impacts on the success of your ecological restoration project. For most weeds, an important control method is removing or cutting back the plant before it goes to seed. Different weed plants tend to require a variety of removal methods, used in progression. Some of these methods include solarization and sheet mulching, mowing, flame weeding or burning, and selective and careful herbicide (incl. organic) use. To dive further into best practices for removing some of our most detrimental weeds in Southern Oregon, check out these documents:

Solarization and sheet mulching: these methods are best used for smaller sites without steep slopes. Solarization utilizes large sheets of clear UV-stable plastic to cover an area containing weeds for 2-6 months in warmer climates, and up to 6 months in colder climates. Many trials have shown solarization to be an extremely successful method of weed removal, as the heat that builds up under the plastic not only kills plants, but also any weed seed bank that has built up in the soil. Occultation is a variation on solarization, where thick black plastic tarps are used to cut of access to sunlight, and produce large amounts of heat. Sheet mulching is useful in areas that are too shady for solarization to be effective, or in areas where laying out a large piece of plastic is impractical due to landscape features. Sheet mulching involves layering nitrogen and carbon based materials to smother weeds and stop the seed bank from being able to germinate. For example, a layer of nitrogen-based material (eg. animal or plant composted materials, pellets, meals, grass clippings) is then topped with a layer of carbon-based material (eg. cardboard, paper, sawdust, woodbark), and then these layers are repeated 1-2 more times, making sure that a heavier carbon-based material is on top to hold everything down. 

Occultation with silage tarps at Jackson County OSU Extension

Mowing: this can be a very useful tool in ensuring a weed population doesn’t get to produce seed. For most weeds, using a mower or weed wacker to remove any seed heads before they -are pollinated is a fast and efficient way to deplete the plant’s ability to reproduce. That said, it can be hard to time mowing so that the plant doesn’t have the time and energy to enter into the flowering stage again, while also navigating any fire season restrictions on cutting dry grass. This method involves getting to know your weeds and their reproductive cycle well, and should be used in tandem with other weed control methods.

Hand-held flame weeder

Fire: flame weeders are an excellent resource for spring-time weed control. They must be used with great caution and attendance to fire restrictions, but they are an efficient and targeted method for removing weeds without impacting surrounding native plants. If you have a large area that would benefit from prescribed fire, get in touch with your local prescribed fire practitioners to see if there are any opportunities available for this work to be done on your land by trained professionals. In Southern Oregon, The Klamath Siskiyou Oak Network may be able to point you toward prescribed fire resources.

Smother cover crops: in areas where weed pressure is low to moderate, cover crops can be used to smother weed plants. Smother cover crops can also improve soil health and provide temporary forage for wildlife, including pollinators. This technique is best used on farmland or pasture that has access to irrigation and farming equipment. Certain varieties of buckwheat, sorghum, millet, oats, rye and vetch can be planted. Depending on the cover crop planted, they can not only compete aggressively with weeds for space, but also alter the nutrients in the soil and release allelopathic substances into the soil to make it undesirable for weed germination and growth. Timing and duration of the cover crop also varies depending upon species, but is very important to ensure that weed suppression is maximized.  

Herbicides: using synthetic herbicides to control weeds is a very contentious issue, but best practices generally determine that they should be used as a last resort, and in a very targeted and well-planned manner. This is particularly important in riparian zones where herbicides can make their way into the aquatic ecosystem. Herbicides alone are rarely able to control the most problematic weeds, and should be considered part of a regime that involves other weed control methods. There are some organic herbicides available to use, and successful use depends on targeted plant species. For more information it is worth checking out the “Roadside Habitat for Monarchs: Monarch Butterflies, Weeds and Herbicides” and “Organic Pesticides: Minimizing Risks to Pollinators and Beneficial Insects” documents produced by the Xerces Society.

Ground Disturbance

If you are utilizing native seeds in your restoration project, gentle ground disturbance is a useful step to take just before you are set to distribute the seed. It helps the seed penetrate the soil more rapidly and protect it from being washed elsewhere by rain, and from browsing wildlife (birds love seed!).

Site preparation: raking in the Ashland watershed

Raking: this is a great method for restoration projects in woodlands, forest floors, sloped locations and small areas being seeded. Hand raking disturbs the ground enough to allow seed to get into the soil, but doesn’t disturb soil structure or existing native plants as much as more intensive ground disturbance. It also allows you to easily avoid any preexisting native plants that you are trying to protect.

Light tillage: you can also use a small tiller / cultivator to prepare an area for seeding. This is particularly useful in pasture and farmland. If you have a weed issues, this is a method that should be considered carefully, as ground disturbance can expose weed seed banks in the soil to the ideal conditions for growth.

Keep an eye out for our next blog post about best practices in native plant seeding for your ecological restoration project! Don’t forget that we are always updating the Rogue Native Plant Partnership Resources Library with new useful resources for ecological restoration projects – from backyards to woodlands and everything in between!

More Useful Site Preparation Resources

Organic Site Preparation for Wildflower Establishment

Posted on by Lilia Letsch

Author: Xerces Society

Site preparation is one of the most important and often inadequately addressed components for successfully installing pollinator habitat. These guidelines provide step-by-step instructions, helpful suggestions, and regional timelines & checklists for preparing both small and large sites using:

  • Solarization
  • Smother cropping
  • Repeated shallow cultivation
  • Sheet mulching
  • Soil inversion
  • Organic herbicide applications
  • Sod removal

Download PDF: Organic Site Preparation for Wildflower Establishment (6MB)