Brookings Wildlife Federation to hear about prairie restoration at Good Earth State Park

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BROOKINGS – The Brookings Wildlife Federation will hear about prairie restoration at Good Earth State Park at their monthly Infolunch, Aug. 6. Speakers will be SDSU Emeritus Professor Carter Johnson and SDSU grad student Luke Zilverberg. Both men are associated with EcoSun Prairie Farms, a unique nonprofit enterprise dedicated to showing the values of prairie.

The Infolunch will be held at noon at the Outdoor Adventure Center, 2810 22nd Ave. S. A light buffet will be available for a free-will donation.

The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department recently contracted with EcoSun to establish native prairie on 106 acres of land at Good Earth State Park near Sioux Falls.

EcoSun has restored and managed a 500-acre tall grass prairie, named the “Prairie Farm” to demonstrate to the public and farmers the beauty, biodiversity and agricultural potential of prairie. Prairie Farm produced grass hay fed to cattle, prairie-raised beef, native plant seeds, and bountiful wildlife habitat for grassland birds.

“We welcome the opportunity to apply what we learned about prairie restoration to one of the newest and most popular parks in South Dakota located just a few miles from nearly 1/3 of the population of South Dakota,” Johnson said. 

When the project is completed, the site will have restored prairie with hiking/walking trails.

The Good Earth State Park landscape was once protected with tall grass prairie dominated by big bluestem, one of the grasses that sustained for centuries the bison and the Oneota village of about 3,000 people living in dome-shaped lodges and occupying land along both the Iowa and South Dakota sides of Big Sioux River.

EcoSun will restore the prairie over a three-year period. The sequence begins by determining plantings representing the historic prairie foliage, followed by preparing the land for planting, securing appropriate mixtures of native prairie seed, drilling in the seed, augmenting biodiversity by growing rare and showy forbs in a greenhouse and in field plots, and controlling annual weeds. More planting will follow during the second year, with spot control of weeds and occasional mowing.

During year three, the existing hiking/walking trails will be extended into the restored prairie and interpretive signage and brochures prepared, along with any vegetation management needed to rate the planting as “established.” A mission of this park is to educate visitors about the Native Americans who resided where the park is now situated and to encourage visitors to experience nature, similar to that which existed when Native Americans populated the area.

The Infolunch is open to the public. The BWF is affiliated with the South Dakota Wildlife Federation and the National Wildlife Federation. The BWF is in its 40th year of supplying conservation information and activities to the Brookings community. For more information, contact BWF President Spencer Vaa, 695-6867.