Value

Seed collecting is one of the most important management activities on Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance’s lands, and volunteers always play an essential role, making sure that we have enough variety and amount of seeds to re-create and bolster our prairies, wetlands, and savannas. Many people are passionate about birds, bumblebees, badgers or other lovable creatures, and it's important to remember that they simply do not exist without the strong scaffold of diverse plant communities which support them.

This year we need your help collecting seeds more than ever. The rain and sun have produced record amounts of seed and accelerated their maturity. Farmers make hay and we need to collect seeds while the sun shines.

Bergamot in bloom. Photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS

And so it came to pass that several of us assembled at Goose Pond Sanctuary on a recent Thursday at Graham's beck and call. The mission at Goose Pond was to collect bergamot and mountain mint. Bergamot might not be thought to be a valuable seed. The plant is abundant, the seed readily collected and cleaned, and the price not too high. However, it's a key plant on the prairie and even more so in re-establishing a prairie. It grows well and  establishes itself readily. Hummingbirds, sphinx moths, bumblebees, and lots of other pollinators love it.

Emma led the initial foray but not far. Heaps o' bergamot right off the trail. I usually count on seed collecting for my daily walk. Not this time. I don't think I had to walk more than 30 feet to fill bucket after bucket. We had two huge barrels overflowing by break time.

Bergamot seed heads drying in the rack at Goose Pond Sanctuary. Photo by Graham Steinhauer/SoWBA

Like any good leaders, Emma and Graham know to change plans when opportunity presents itself.  Good fortune took the form of a wide swath of sideoats grama (SOG) 15 feet up the hill from the bergamot. Almost nothing but SOG and it was perfectly ripe and ready for easy harvest. No cutting, clipping or stooping, just stripping the seed with one's hand. The seed would be clean and not need additional processing.

Sideoats grama seeds ready to be collected. Photo by Joshua Mayer

SOG is a wonderful native grass and is a great part of a healthy prairie. Its presence illustrated another aspect of value. Its abundance, ease of harvest, and the lack of any extensive processing mean that we were saving time. In an hour the volunteers filled a 6 gallon bucket of pure, clean, ready to be sown seed. Staff and volunteer time is every bit as precious as money during seed collection season.

A 5-gallon bucket filled with freshly collected sideoats grama seed. Topf is in the background! Photo by Graham Steinhauer/SoWBA

We are in full swing for seed collecting at the sanctuaries, and our organization and landscapes will appreciate any seed collecting help you can give. And you'll have fun, meet great people, and do something good for birds and other critters.

To participate in seed collection, please contact these sanctuary land stewards.  

Take care,

Topf Wells, advocacy committee

Cover photo: seed collecting volunteers in a sideoats grama patch. Photo by Graham Steinhauer/SoWBA