Abstract
Grasslands are an integral part of the North American landscape and serve important ecological roles for soils stabilization, wildlife habitat, and economic well-being of rural areas. Coupled with losses of native grasslands to farming are those losses attributed to energy extraction. In North Dakota, some of the greatest losses from the early 2000s oil boom occurred in the fragile badlands ecosystem. As extraction efforts cease, oil firms, producers, land managers, and others will need to restore disturbed native grasslands. Our work tested attributes of native seed mixes and their establishment success to improve restoration. We conducted two separate studies that varied by year of planting (2011 and 2012) and by seed mixes used during each study. We collected canopy cover data to assess the efficacy of differing seed mixes (species and seed density) for establishing native grassland richness and cover. We found that increased species richness in initial seed mixes resulted in increased species richness for both the 2011 and 2012 studies. Despite the increased richness in some seed mixes, grass cover was similar among all treatments except for the 2012 study where increased forb cover came at the expense of grasses. Although great variability exists across badland landscapes, our data suggests that restoration practitioners may have a harder time establishing forbs over grasses. Increasing seed densities of forbs at time of planting may be one option available to increase forb cover.
