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Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Seed Source is Everything



The concept of seed source is a rather simple one yet it can have massive consequences for a piece of property.  What I mean by seed source is the historical survival and reproduction of the plants in a given area and the resulting current and potential future plant communities that result from their successful reproduction. Seed source, as I'll explain, is extremely important when designing a property for any specific plant community, including one geared for wild game habitat.

Seed source can dramatically affect what a landscape looks like. Two given areas could have the exact same climate, geography, and soil type, but could be ecologically very different from each other, looking completely different based on the existing plant communities. One area could have an old growth temperate rainforest with giant cedars and hemlocks with ferns and lichens and many other mesic plant species.  While 20 miles away in the exact same ecoregion an area could be covered with aspen, fire weed and other early successional plant communities. The difference? Maybe a volcano such as Mt St Helens could have exploded 100 years ago wiping out all of the rainforest vegetation and effectively destroying the seed sources of the temperate rainforest plant community. What grows in this highly distributed ecosystem now is only species whose seeds were able to be brought in such as from the wind or from animals scattering the seed from very far away. If one were to bring in and plant seeds from the rainforest such as the cedars and hemlocks then the area would gradually turn back into a functioning temperate rainforest because essentially it already has the right climate, soil, and geography for these species all that is needed is a seed source.

This is a very important concept to grasp when managing a property for wild game. You may have bought a property that looks like it wouldn't be able to support much game based on the types of plants that are currently growing on it. But in the long run what is currently there is somewhat irrelevant because we have the ability to manage the seed source to design a completely new ecosystem based on what we think will be good for wild game. The two main ways we can manage the seed source on our properties is to one introduce new desirable seeds and plants and two by preventing the reproduction of existing plants that we deem undesirable.  

While removing undesirable plants is important in order to manage plant communities for wild game, it is even more important to provide desirable species that will be able to support them. When introducing new seed sources to your property you need to research and find out the specific needs of each plant species.  Will they grow in your climate and soil type? Will they be able to compete with the existing vegetation? What management strategies will be needed to establish them to the point to where they will reproduce and sustain themselves on your property? These are all important questions that you will need to figure out for each plant species you want to grow on your property.  For example, on my property I wanted to plant American Chestnut trees. Through research and experience I have learned that they can grow in my climate and soil, but they could be negatively affected by drought and heat stress when they are young and could potentially die before a deep taproot has been established. In order to reduce this stress I found out that I could plant them in the partial shade of an existing rose shrub on my property and this would lessen the stress of the hot dry summer climate and allow them to survive long enough to establish a deep taproot. And once they are established then they will be growing above the height of the rose and will be able to handle more of the direct summer sun. Now that I have figured this out I can use this knowledge for this species and others with similar requirements and start planting many more trees in the partial shade of a rose bush. With this I am essentially altering the plant community by adding a seed source that in the future will reproduce and be able to spread and be self sustaining on my property.  

While adding desirable species is definitely the most important way to manage the seed source on a property it is almost as important to take away the seed source of undesirable plants that will take up space and resources that could be put towards more useful plants. When introducing new plants you will mainly be interested in how to nurture them to the point of being self sustaining, however when looking at getting rid of undesirable plants your main focus will be on their weaknesses that will prevent them from surviving and reproducing.  One example of this from my own property is my attempt to get rid of the perennial grass Meadow Foxtail. While this grass has some minimal forage value for wildlife mainly in the spring, it is one of the dominant plant species on my property and within the whole area and it is way more numerous than it needs to be to provide good habitat for the game species in my area. As a perennial grass it is very hardy and tough to get rid of. Unlike many plant species I can't just cut it once and be done. As a grass it is adapted to being grazed over and over and the only real ways to get rid of it is by continuously cutting it to the ground over and over, disturbing the soil enough by tilling or digging it out or by shading it out with trees and shrubs. I could design a closed canopy forest on my property and over time shade it out completely, but this would take a very long time and would not be best for creating optimal wild game habitat.  So my only other real options are continuously cutting it down to the ground until all it's nutrient reserves in the roots have been exhausted or I will have to dig it up. I am now in the process of experimenting with several different methods such as multiple cuttings to to ground level with a weedeater. Another method I will experiment with is by digging it up either with a large hoe called a "grub hoe" or by renting some sort of rototilling type of equipment. Either way once I find they quickest, cheapest and most sustainable method then I will adopt it to get rid of the majority of this grass on my property. At the same time once the soil is exposed I will seed it as quickly as possible with different herbaceous plants such as varieties of clover and many other species in order to create what I am calling a "wild game meadow". But I will not be able to successfully do this until I remove the competing vegetation which is mainly the meadow foxtail grass.

By learning what desirable plants need to thrive and also learning the weaknesses of undesirable plants you can greatly affect and alter the plant communities on your property by managing the seed source. Over time the knowledge you gain from research as well as trial and error will be immensely valuable and once you figure out the best, easiest and most cost effective ways to do this then all it will take is action to convert your property to a self sustaining wildlife paradise. And while some undesirable plants will be very difficult to eradicate just from the fact that their seed could be dormant in the soil or come from the wind over time if you manage your property in a sustainable way then these few weed seeds that happen to germinate will mostly be outcompeted by the high diversity of beneficial species that you have brought in. And over time it will be possible to even alter the long term soil seed bank so if a disturbance such as a fire or a plow breaks the ground then even those new plants that pop up will be descendants from your desirable plants that you established.  Once this point is reached then a real long term sustainable equilibrium will take place that could last hundreds, even thousands of years, especially if your neighbors were all doing the same kind of management. While this time scale is hard to grasp and somewhat unnecessary for our purposes it is still interesting to think about the possibilities of what could be achieved with proper management of the seed source.