Land Between Two Rivers; 203; A Prairie Conversation. Part 1

The following program is made possible through a grant from the Kenny Lindstrom foundation incorporated a charitable trust Mason City Iowa. On. Iowa and 1850 was covered with 28 million acres of native prairie. It's represented over 85 percent of the state's total acreage. Today less than one tenth of one percent of Iowa remains in Prairie. This figure represents approximately 10000 acres. Why did this huge loss occur. The settlers discovered that the soil created by prairie vegetation was extremely fertile. In fact some people consider the prairie soil a more valuable natural resource than oil or gold since it is the base material that is fed vast populations over many generations. A prairie is a grassland composed of many grasses and Forbes and few trees or shrubs Burrows or a common prairie treat shrubs usually

begin invading prairie's from low lying or moist areas prairie's once covered most of the mid continental United States. Prairie means meadow in French. Prayer is in Iowa where dominated by big blue stem and Indian grass. There are many different types of prairie in Iowa such as the hill prairie's of northeastern Iowa the dry prairie's of shorter grass and the Lost Hills area and sand berries. Originally these prairie's weren't in significant percentage of the total in Iowa. Today these prairie's are the dominant types because most of these types are located on undesirable land and the tall grass berries with their rich soil was mostly converted to agriculture. How did this unique terrain develop so that it would nourish first the bison and other plains animals and then humans. I was prairie's took shape beneath the ice of the great glacial advances of the last two million years. The soil that was formed by these glaciers was an ideal material for the growth of grass but a larger factor in the formation of

fairies is climate. Hot dry periods favored grasses cool moist carry its favored trees over the last twenty five thousand years. This silent struggle between trees and grass has raged in the Midwest about a thousand years ago a grass favoring shift of climate occurred which continued for about 4000 years. Since that time the pendulum has swung in favor of trees. Does this retreat spell the end for prairie's as we know them. There is no way to be absolutely certain. Should we assist prairie's in their struggle to survive. Some believe we mattered little in that effort. Others think maintaining harmony with their environment is a goal worth a lifetime of continued dedication. I had a grandfather who had who was born in central Illinois about 1885 and spent some time in South Dakota helping one of his brothers

homestead there the story moved back I was a farmer and he used to share some things about the prairie with me. He was a farmer and he was wrestling a living from the soil and Rather. I can recall specifically one of his comments when I asked him about the prairie because I'm sort of romantically inclined towards the fairies and an ice as I was asking about and he said Oh yeah when I was in South Dakota we had to leave a section for the school. Well I think first of all Iowans are people of the soil in one form or another and this soil was created by the prairie and so that's a little bit abstract in one sense they're very direct in another one the black race I was right raises are good crops in the organic matter that was was created by the prairie's important but I think there's also a need in a lot of people as some open space and in a feeling of openness and I think that this provides that opportunity Israel and there are some who might even make the argument that man as a species needs some natural areas like this. Our biological inheritance made in and

developed and in the trees and regions of Africa but our cultural inheritance was on the savannas of Africa. How does this slope up here is that the place to start. ROSS We will be on our past. I got you just walk out here forever. Then the other sizing is I wouldn't want to bring every Iowan out here from the standpoint of what it would do the prairie from the standpoint of overdo the Iowan I love to bring him out here because I think everyone should have that opportunity but all the labels got a quote there that I think is very very appropriate He says all conservation is self-defeating because to fully appreciate it you gotta see it and fondling when enough of seen it and fondle that there's nothing left. So that's a difficult balance to achieve and that's where I think projects like the reconstruction of prairie's you can recreate certain aspects of the prairie and and you can do that closer to the urban centers and where people can have access to them.

They can come and visit those those reconstructed praise at least begin to get a feel of what Iowa may have been like in the past so I walked right by this caller who says this is kind of an interesting plant of the leaf arrangements interesting in the flowers when they first emerge are interesting. Apparently the Indians and some of the early settlers used it as a purgative In fact sometimes other than being called Culvers root it's called Indian physic and as you take a portion of it it will apparently be very clear that it is an American right. In fact some of the commercial sellers of natural foods in their portion to keep you regular will use the Clovers root as a portion of that. It's all of this over. Oh yeah. Is it say's that's that is a very strong set of words to that will work very well for seasoning. It's just like they don't because a strong is against anything. Don't you know I don't know

if it is because there's a certain foods says Why stop here. Notice call your attention the fire has caused these big blue stem to move earlier than it might normally do it's what you can easily see why they sometimes call this turkey. Yeah very big news Tim has one of the characteristic grasses of the tall grass prairie in fact they grew stale along with Indian grass or consider two of the primary dominant grasses of the tall grass prairie. Most good berries probably have two hundred fifty three hundred different species on. Sam I think we all realize gray often is the age of some of these clumps of prairie plants it's very possible that this clump of drops say there's equally as older some of the oak trees in Iowa because they they die back each year but they go up from the roots of the roots may be equally as old as some of the trees. I think that's a concept that we'll

always keep in mind on the prairie and I think they grow up through everything here at the compass plant for example has like its roots to Africa goes down 16 20 feet or so and the roots of the prairie are what is the basis of our agricultural heritage in Iowa because those very root systems are what created the BlackBerry soil that we're raising all of that corn and soybeans off. One when the first settlers arrived in the New World in the early sixteen hundreds there were already many Indian nations living in harmony in the land between two rivers and burly white explorers found great open plains of grass playing field with Buffalo elk and deer. To some of these pioneers these open spaces where a prospect most monotonous and loving. Others revel in this open expanse. But there was no

denying that here a family could settle cheaply. Here after the long painful weeks and months in a Conestoga wagon. The family could put down roots. Despite the great difficulty of breaking the prairie sod in the root structure which held it in place. There were rich rewards. So even though the winters were extreme. Most who made it through those first long cold winters and once again forced the prairie to yield the harvest for man getting. Wandering out onto the prairie was not just an activity popular with the settlers it persists to this day. Prairie's do not confine themselves to spring flowering. They are active throughout an entire spring summer and fall. There is always something to wrest your attention when you visit a prairie compass plant hemlock Pasch flowers purple

coneflowers ragwort purple prairie clover shooting stars blue flat Iris feels black eyed Susans gold. Rod. And prairie gay feather it's a phantasmagoria of vibrant colors swaying on a soft summer breeze filled with the humming sound of insects toppling from one plant to another. Relaxing us and putting us into a mood of quiet meditative thought. We live.

In. A new. Place now. We're waiting for a butterfly to come out. The adult butterfly emerges and flies in the area of the prairie like this only for a two week period. In fact some of the individuals in the population live only two or three days and yet they do this year after year after year. 5000 years ago of course before this. No there was anybody from Europe living in this area in India walking across the ferries could have seen that same special. We know such things as the swallows periodically coming back to Capistrano in situ. Wonderful event. They seem to

come back in the same year that thousands of people congregate to watch that situation well. Here we have something that's been repeated for ten thousand years. Yet how many people do you see on this prairie observing this wonderful phenomena of the emergence of the prairie state. It's an amazing. Amazing story and a wonderful thing to consider in terms of time. Yeah we got him we got it right is big as life. This is always skipper is found only on the native prairie in southwestern Iowa. It occurs more broadly however into the brassica. Westward here this is its eastern most populations. They must be around where they can get someone year in so they say nectar feed on these

purple flowers in areas where the purple flowers aren't sick they timed their emergence to other nectar bearing planes. Skippers are morphologically similar one to the OTHER than they are to the rest of the butterfly group and all of them are stout bodied and more like an appearance if you will. Then perhaps they are to some the butterfly groups. All of them have a recurved antenna all of their. Normal butterflies and non skipper groups have clubbed in but none of the clubs turned backwards and all the skippers they do their first feature. Are generally fast flying things. Generally Schomberg colored. Not very spectacular. Many students butterflies never take up a collection. Skippers. Are not. Very pretty. They are a. Prairie indicators among

other things and what I'm not specialized. Group. We are a prairie state and since most skippers Sidonie grasses. Of various sorts. There are probably more species of skippers. Living in Iowa. Historically than any other kind. Of gradually been. Waning. Let's go back and think about Spring. In spring they the canopy of the prairie was very short. Everything is just beginning to grow and every year it grows the growth starts and new starts from the ground and gets higher and higher and higher as the months go by. The canopy and the grass never can go higher and higher right. So here's a plant which starts very early in the spring. You can see

a flowering plant and a non flowering plant. And notice down here here's the first leaf that was produced at least an early very short that leaf was probably about halfway to the canopy at that time. Here is the Secondly. It's prettiest higher in the canopy and here is the Thirdly probably the last leaf of the season and it again probably had some position relative to the top of the canopy In other words this plant. And one way or another the leaf lines of position in the canopy which gives it the proper blend of light intensity to carry on photosynthesis. It's not way down in the grass. It's not way up high but it always seems to position that this leaf laid about halfway up in the canopy so there's not it's not really getting the full sunlight but getting lots of sunlight. OK now here's a second manifestation of this growth of the

vegetation. Here is the the flowering stock. And here is the first flower. It's in fruit now but the first brother was here when it was in flower. That's where the level of the canopy was. Now a week later 10 days later you see the canopy has grown an inch or two. And these for the second set of flowers is produced an inch or two above the first flower and I've seen plants with three sets of flowers and this third set of flowers will be up here right in the canopy Mausam anuses centimeters. The vast majority of the plants are bee pollinated. Will see delphinium in a minute which is bumble bee pollinated and then we and the bumble bee pollinated things tend to stick up considerably above the canopy they don't they don't sit down in the wind they sit up here huge beautiful flags and the bumble bees can see them from a large distance and the other large of these

half a dozen species of these out here the size of bumble bees in addition to the three species of Bumblebee and they just cruise from Dolphin into Dolphin into delphinium or whatever it is they're visiting do their thing go on to the next bunch. But their plans tend to sit up high above the canopy and they a little be a little sweaty fees and things like that things that are a half a centimeter long. Are smaller about that size up to that size. They'll visit those plants that are down in the canopy like the Coreopsis And those those little bees then can just go from flower to flower to flower never get up in the way Lincoln did like 15 miles an hour up here and they can just go from flower to flower to flower as long as the wind speed at the canopy okay is not more than five to six or seven miles an hour. If the wind in the canopy gets much above 7 miles an hour

the little Daisy disappears the little flies disappear. They just go. So there's this there is a nice structure we have that for pollination anyway. The plants in the canopy and those that are emergent above you can lead you. In your living. And you don't need. To. Many birds such as the probably passed the brand. New. Mark

would have a field house modeled after very. Hard stuff or other materials. Making fabrics. For. Others to hear and. Never have to deal to simply go through and harvest off. The sources. Perhaps while grazing animals. Are worse than never. I think that's. Very. Rare perhaps. The. Culture of the cultural system. Already all. Right. You know. Every year the corners collapse you

know we just we but the. Year after. Year century after century city Prairie is because it's right in the middle of town and yet you can get to a place like my husband is talking about where you can set and you don't see the town about you at all and you barely hear it you. Have to try to hear it because she'd get to the ferry. And you. Are in your backyard or anything. Like you're in another world. And you're. You're able to. Just get in contact with the nature of matter with yourself and I think I'm getting in contact with nature facilitating contact with yourself. Where you. Use your. Birth.

Here they are.

So I think the prairie it's time to introduce children to the prairie. They came there. Can you. Imagine. A. Prairie plant. Right. Down here on the Prairie. On the Prairie. Could be. Too much. If you had a great. Time. What if you. Were better. Can you tell when you're signing with you. Let's look at some of these great players do they have great. Players. They're pretty smart but have a lot. That would help a lot when.

There's a plant on the prairie in the last prairie that was found to go down 40 feet. It was a yucca plant. Yeah. Don't park. It. Why do you think prairie plants to read. Water. You can read it. My roots and the plant together little live south of the plant. Now would tell you you're making your way that's way. Way. Higher. Oh yes much longer right. Right just like here's my arm Here's the soil OK the surface of the soil. You have roots coming down this far and maybe a plant is picking up this part of the. Problem of vegetation which is one of the things

the fire itself deals with left along this area would become tree would lose its grass on the fire helps to keep the woody vegetation control. Not that we have anything against what he did. This is a grassland reserve prairie in order to remain must agree on if we have a tree fire also the fires are also helping the prairie in the day they burn on the old grass. Now it's become very very over the years so those are burned off and our gag matter is returned to the soil in terms of which fertilize and. Rejuvenate the heat penetrates the rest of the day of the year. A very small fraction so it isn't a deep penetrating injuries which

is why the free plants thrive because two thirds of their mass is underground the root stocks are hardy and they sprout up immediately on staff. Carsten were in Currier is fire was an important part of the ecology of the area. We cannot simply allow for a flourish to go as they did back. Over 100 years ago from the entire area over the river so we have to reintroduce it very carefully. They say this element of the ecology of the earth. The Prairie is a national resource rich heritage and diversity by learning

something about the spider which once covered 5 percent of our state now covers last with one tenth of one percent. We're doing more than just taking an interest in plants insects and birds. We're connecting our south to Iowa's natural areas. If you're doing it you're on a prairie one and you're really opening yourself up the diversity of its life. You will inevitably find yourself drawn back again and again this is not something just to fire the imagination. It is believed humans originated on the savannas of Africa. So maybe this impressive natural resource beckons to us because it is a part of our racial memory. Whatever it is it's contagious and compelling. Go there so you won't regret your decision. This program was made possible through a grant from the Kenny Lindstrom foundation incorporated a

charitable trust Mason City Iowa.