Completing Clear Creek Knolls

By Riley Nylin, Restoration Technician

Three trucks using drop seeders to plant the Flagg and Carthage planting.

​On November 18th, 2019 Riley Nylin, Tyler Pellegrini, and Amanda Contreras completed the 2019 crew planting on the corner of East Flagg Road and South Carthage Road. This 63-acre planting finishes off the Clear Creek Knolls management unit.  

Boundary of the new planting on Flagg and Carthage.

Over the course of the season, our crew hand-picked 2,930 pounds of seed. Because of the extremely wet conditions of the picking season, we were forced to focus heavily on diversity instead of attempting to collect large amounts of seed. This led us to breaking only one seed collection record. We collected 29 pounds of pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia) when the past record was only 14 pounds! 

Crew members picking pussytoes in the spring.

Jenny Chlipala, Amanda Contreras, and Riley Nylin picking blue joint grass in the summer.

5 out of the 36 barrels of spiderwort seed that the crew picked.

​Several different planting mixes were made, but not all of them were used on this site. The handpicked mixes are broken up into five categories: Dry, Dry Mesic, Mesic, Wet, and Woodland. The Wet and Woodland seed mixes were saved for other plantings/over-seeding areas. Within each mix, the crew focused heavily on species diversity. Table 1 displays the total number of species per mix. 

Table 1: Number of species in each seed mix.

Barrels of milled seed that have been sorted out and are being prepared to mix.

Tyler, Amanda, and Riley posing for a photo on top of their dry mesic seed pile.

​Once the seed was collected, separated, and mixed, the crew took to the field to plant! By planting 184 species at 50 lbs per acre, they planted a total of 85 acres of new prairie as well as over-seeding a few portions of past plantings. While 63 of the acres were planted at the Flagg and Carthage planting, the other 22 acres were planted at Franklin Creek Natural Area (FCNA). The FCNA planting was in partnership with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Riley, Tyler, and Amanda posing for a photo while putting more seed in the drop seeder.

Tyler, Riley, and Amanda posing for a photo in front of their Franklin Creek Natural Area planting when all the work was done.