Update on the Drake University Prairie Rescue and Restoration Internship

 

Tom Rosburg

 

 Drake students that have signed on with the Drake PRRI (Prairie Rescue and Restoration Internship) have been very busy this spring helping to protect small privately owned prairie remnants.  Funded with a donation of $6,000 from the Iowa Prairie Network, seven interns under the supervision of Tom Rosburg, have worked throughout central and south-central Iowa on seven sites.   Here's a quick list of the sites worked on:

tallgrass prairie (Cindy Hildebrand and Roger Maddux, Warren County) - cleared many large pines and cedars

savanna (Dan Coulson, Ringgold County) - cleared osage orange, honey locust, some shingle oak, raspberry and buckbrush thickets; treated stumps with herbicide

tallgrass prairie (Larry Sickles, Ringgold County) - cleared eastern red cedar and ash, treated stumps with herbicide, and completed a prescribed burn

dry tallgrass prairie (Doug Poore, Ringgold County) - cleared hundreds of

eastern red cedar, honey locust, shingle oak; treated stumps with herbicide

tallgrass prairie (Mile Losee, Dallas County) - cleared many osage orange, honey locust, elm and mulberry; treated stumps with herbicide

tallgrass prairie (Dan Coulson, Ringgold County) - prescribed burn for control of smooth brome

tallgrass prairie (Virgil Raymond, Story County) - prescribed burn and brush clearing of dogwood and buckthorn

 There were two additional sites on the list, a woodland/savanna project in Boone County and a fen burn in Fayette County, but wet stormy weather prevented the interns from getting to them.  Both sites should see action from Rosburg's "weekend warriors" this summer and next fall.

 In addition to the funding from IPN, additional funding is being provided for sites that qualify through the Landowner Incentive Program (LIP) with the Iowa DNR.   LIP is providing a 75% match to the IPN money.  By focusing work on LIP-qualified sites, the PRRI funding has the potential to increase upwards to as much as $20,000.   That level of funding will keep the PRR Interns very busy and help protect many small prairies.  Most importantly, the majority of these sites might not otherwise get protected because of the inability of the landowner to do management work.