Prairie Restoration

By:

Initial Survey of Land

At the beginning of the year our class went to the Blackland Prairie land that we are currently restoring. We divided up the land into 1 square meter plots and each plot was assessed in aspects such as how much vegetation there is, the number of different species of both plants and animals, ph level of the soil, temperature of the soil, and wind speed. We had specialized personnel who were able to identify all the various plants and distinguish between the native and nonnative plants as well identifying invasive species. After this initial survey our class did research on the prairie. We specifically focused on separating the native species, how to restore those specific plants, as well as the process for removing the invasive species. We found that the best way to remove the invasives was to do focus burning of the pants or pull them up by hand and determined that using herbicides would have too many side effects and would ultimately harm the overall prairie rather than help it. We also determined that the best way to restore the native plants to the prairie was to grow the seeds in the pots and transplant them into the ground after they were grown.

Overall the initial survey and research provided a great amount of information and allowed us to plan what to do for the future.



Then on April 28th, students went to the back to the Blackland Prairie at the Coppell Nature Park. There, the students brought in tools such as wheelbarrows, rakes, hoes, sprinklers, soil, and flowers to further implement the prairie restoration process. Hours were spent hand picking the invasive plants as well as planting the native plants. Through these efforts, the Blackland Prairie restoration process took positive steps in the right direction as the sprinklers were implemented to help sustain the health and growth of the native plants throughout the spring and hot summers in Coppell, Texas. Hopefully, this process can be an annual event where students can come to the Blackland Prairie to monitor the progress as well as continuing to eliminate the invasive species and planting the natives. The significance of this restoration is that the invasive species do not have any natural predators and compete for the natural resources such as sunlight, water, soil, and food, while the native species do have natural predators while competing with the invasive species. As a result, the native species slowly die out over time due to the chain reaction of the decrease of the primary producers of the native plants leads to a decreased food source for the secondary native consumers, leading to a fewer food source for the native tertiary consumers.

 
Because of the soil and climate, this ecoregion is ideally suited to crop agriculture. This has led to most of the Blackland Prairieecosystem being converted to crop production, leaving less than one percent remaining. The prairie we have is very rare and by using safe measures and procedures, the conservation of the prairie is really important. This is the reason why the decision of not using large amounts of herbicide because of the risk that there might be consequences aftermath.

During our trips to the prairie we had collected data in order to create a baseline data for future students and classes to use it as a way of looking at improvements within the prairie overtime. By doing this, we can safely plant the native species we got from LLEVA and introduce them within our prairie. These natives can be planted and eventually spread to create more plants and increase biodiversity within our Coppell Nature Park blackland prairie. The hope for next year’s students is to collect the new data and see a trend of the species in the prairie and hopefully the amount of invasives will eventually decrease and the native diversity will increase.