Harvest Time

Late summer and fall are the times of the year when most native plants set seeds, so I have been collecting a few prairie seeds for use in the restoration. Some parts of the prairie are in bad shape but can probably be restored quickly just by cutting the shrubs and trees that are shading out the prairie plants. In other areas the prairie plants seem to be gone or nearly gone, so we plan to scatter some seeds from other parts of the prairie to help fill in the bare spots. This week I collected seeds of Sideoats Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) and Prairie Brome (Bromus kalmii). These grasses are most easily identified by their flowers and the seed heads that follow. Like most grasses, the seeds turn straw colored when they're ripe and I collect them by simply stripping the seeds (and miscellaneous other dried bits of plant) by hand. I store the seeds in plastic bags either in my refrigerator or in my unheated garage to give them the cooling they need to sprout. Like the seeds of most temperate zone plants, these probably need to be chilled to simulate winter before they'll sprout. Otherwise, the seeds might sprout in fall and be killed by winter weather before they have a chance to grow and gain some strength. Being programmed to wait for a long period of chilling means seeds don't sprout until spring, when conditions for growing are better. At least that is the way most native plant seeds behave, and I plan to proceed on the assumption that Sideoats Grama and Prairie Brome seeds are similar. I have to admit that I don't plan to try NOT chilling some of the seeds to see if they will still sprout in the spring, so I won't know for sure if chilling is necessary.