LOWER WISCONSIN RIVERWAY - The Lower Wisconsin Riverway Board (LWSRB) conducted their second in their bi-monthly series of field trips on Thursday, April 13. The itinerary included two forestry projects in Crawford County, and two prairie projects in Richland County. It was a beautiful, 80-dgree spring day.

Ten citizens, including four Riverway Board members, gathered at the intersection of Highway 60 and Crawford County E to view the first forestry project on a steeply wooded parcel. The DNR Forester scheduled to talk about the project was not available due to the extremely hazardous wildfire conditions that prevailed across the southern two-thirds of the state.

“Last year, DNR staff and contracted workers underplanted the entire 50-acre area with one-to-two inch walnut seedlings,” LWSRB Executive Director Mark Cupp explained. “As conditions in Marietta Township were so dry in 2022, it’s possible that the survival rate of the seedlings may have been impacted.”

Cupp explained that there had been three different patches planted, and that walnut had already been the predominant species in the woodlot. A flatter area in the center had been used to stage logs from a logging project conducted in the winter, and the anticipation is that the area would likely need to be replanted.

“In addition to walnut, DNR is also hoping for a natural seeding of Chinkopin Oak and Maple in the area,” Cupp explained. “The area was planted very heavily in anticipation of the logging effort, so that may help the survival rate.”

LWSRB President Gigi LaBudde asked why seedlings were planted, and if it would work as well to simply plant the seeds.

“DNR has found they have a better survival rate with seedlings versus seeds,” LWSRB board member Dan Hillberry said.

Next stop on the tour was a forestry project just completed on the Merwin property, near the intersection of Highways 60 and 61.

“This project is very similar the one we just visited,” Cupp told the group. “Some of the patches closer to the road at this site were planted in walnut, and other patches were planted in oak.”

Hillberry explained that the logging of the site had been accomplished using a log skidder, which he said could operate on very steep slopes. Logs are hauled out of the woods, attached by an approximately 130-foot cable.

Cupp explained to the group that the LWSRB permitting process changes the higher up the hillside you go for logging permits along the river.

“In the lower ‘River View Zone,’ we allow limited harvest of up to six-acre areas involving a maximum of one-third of the contiguous forested area,” Cupp explained. “What we prefer is a small patch clear cut, ideally one-to-three acres, and not just a circle, but rather more of a polygon.”

Cupp said the rules are different as you get higher in what he referred to as the ‘Bluff Zone.’ He said at that elevation, LWSRB allows only selective harvest except in cases where it is needed to control infestations, for instance of oak wilt or Emerald Ash Borer.

“We are required to provide access for timber harvesting in the Riverway, and that may require construction of logging roads,” Cupp said. “Our interests with the roads involve aesthetics, sustainable design and erosion control.”

Dan Hillberry said that generally, the design for the logging roads emphasizes sloping out from the banks to encourage water to flow into natural water courses, and switchbacks of the road if the terrain is particularly steep. He pointed out a feature on the road at the site that is frequently used – a ‘thank you mom,’ – which is a berm across the road that functions like a speed bump, slowing runoff down, and diverting it off the road.

Environmental educator, Gigi LaBudde was quick to share her delight with the spring ephemerals that were sprouting and blooming in the forest understory with the warm temperatures. Plants she identified include May Apple, Virginia Wateleaf, and Hepatica (Blood Root). She also pointed out to the group that invasive garlic mustard was also growing in the woodlot.

“For forest landowners that participate in the Managed Forestry Law program, if you are having your woods logged, you can require in your contract that their equipment be clean before they bring it onto your property,” LaBudde observed. “This is a great way to prevent spreading of invasive species seeds onto your property from another property.”

Hillberry seemed enthused to point out the species of trees contained in the woodlot, which he said were typical northern hardwoods.

Prairie projects

The next stops on the tour were two DNR prairie restoration projects in Richland County. The first was at a location known as ‘Windward Square,’ just to the east of Port Andrew.

The section where the prairie restoration was implemented is a 72-acre former cornfield that was planted to prairie in 2018. The field is very sandy, and the prairie type, according to LaBudde is a ‘short-grass prairie.’

“DNR’s Savanna Hartman out of the Boscobel office is the project lead on this restoration,” Cupp said. “The burn her team conducted at this site two weeks ago is designed to use prescribed fire to interseed forbes to add greater diversity into the prairie plant mix at this site.”

Cupp said that the site had been burned because of its size. He said that in recent years, with staffing numbers an issue, DNR has increasingly focused on using prescribed fire only on larger tracts of land.

LaBudde commented that with the sandy soils at the site, it is better to have the tract in perennial versus annual vegetation.

“In pre-settlement times, this land probably was a prairie, but the post-settlement use for agricultural production interrupted that feature,” LaBudde said. “I think it is better to refer to these projects as ‘prairie creation’ rather than ‘restoration,’ since there really isn’t a prairie to be restored.”

LaBudde observed that it is good that this tract was in corn production before the prairie creation took place. That agricultural use means that the undesirable seed stock will have largely been eliminated.

“Fire recycles nutrients and allows the sun to warm up the soil more quickly in the spring,” LaBudde pointed out. “For prairie, fire is essential, because otherwise the woods would inevitably encroach.”

The last site the group visited was a beautiful tract of land in an area known as the ‘Richwood Bottoms.’ The prairie, established in the last 10-20 years, is located above a stretch of the Wisconsin River known as ‘The Narrows.’ On the day the group visited, the river was swollen with snow melt and recent rains, and was moving through the Prairie du Sac Dam at about 40,000 cubic-feet-per-second, down from earlier in the week. The area is now a State Natural Area.

The prairie is located on sandy soils on a terrace above the Wisconsin River, and was described by LaBudde as a ‘unique dry prairie.’ LaBudde showed the group a Spotted Horsemint plant, which she said is a typical dry prairie plant species, and said it is a cousin to the Monarda or ‘Butterfly Weed’ plant.

“This place is very near and dear to my heart,” Cupp said. “When I first moved here to take on my role with the Riverway Board, I would come here after work and walk, and enjoy the peace of this place.”

Cupp said that the area had been in agricultural production, and pasture, before the landowner had sold the tract to the DNR. He said the prairie project had been accomplished in two phases, and said the site is scheduled to be burned in 2024.

“This land is Ho-Chunk land, and is an important archaeological site for them,” Cupp said. “The land was occupied by generations of the Ho-Chunk, who are the people that built the effigy mounds here, and also the Meskwaki (Fox) people in the 1800s.”

Cupp told the group that John Combe had been the first European to settle in this area, with his family’s homestead, known as ‘Tippesaukee,’ nearby. At the time that Combe settled here, there was a Ho-Chunk village on the site, surrounded by agricultural fields.

“Current owners, Ben and Bruce Moffatt, having no heirs themselves to pass the farm on to, have applied for non-profit status for the farm, and are pursuing a permanent conservation easement for the property through the Driftless Area Land Conservancy,” Cupp said. “They will sell the farm to a neighbor to keep the land in agricultural production.”

Cupp said that the story of the Coumbe family established that this land was a prairie, maintained by its Native American inhabitants through the use of fire.