Great News for Gardeners and other Plant Geeks

By: Mike Groenewold, Park Horticulturist

A new plant hardiness zone map released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will not only be of interest to gardeners, but anyone planting trees, shrubs or other ornamental plants. Since 1920, the USDA has published a Plant Hardiness Map that divides the country into 13 plant zones reflecting an average of minimum winter temperatures for a given location for the last 30 years. Zone 13 on the plant zone map reflects the warmest region indicating a warmer winter temperature limit of survival while Zone 1 reflects the coldest region indicating a colder winter temperature limit of survival. The USDA rating system was recently updated with data measured at weather stations during the 30-year period, 1976-2005.

So, what are the implications of the new USDA Hardiness Zone Map? Previously, the southern half of the state was in Zone 5 and the northern half was in Zone 4. Only a few counties in the northern Panhandle are in Zone 4 on the new map, or put another way, 90 percent of the state is now in Zone 5. Whether you agree or not, the new hardiness zone map does reflect a global warming trend, but more importantly to the gardener this information means planting marginally hardy plants like peaches and apricots, is less risky in most of Nebraska. An ornamental tree favored by many gardeners is the magnolia tree. Nurserymen have often considered one magnolia species, Magnolia acuminata, worth trying on protected sites in southeastern Nebraska. Armed with new USDA hardiness zone ratings, residents of central Nebraska may want to try planting this beautiful species. No doubt, many gardeners and landscapers will have their own list of favorite, but marginally hardy plants which now may be worth planting.

Even though the USDA rating system gives gardeners and landscapers a predictable temperature range for plants that might survive in each zone, don’t always accept the information as gospel. Remember the USDA system is based on average minimum temperatures and not on the extreme minimum temperatures that can occur in each zone. You may find this information along with the USDA zone recommendation on plant labels that you purchase at your local nursery or garden center. So don’t overlook all of this valuable information for your locale when predicting whether the plants you select will survive over many years.

Many variables, like extended drought prior to arrival of winter weather, will influence how well a plant withstands extreme winter conditions, so visiting with respected plant experts may help you make a wise decision. And speaking of wise decisions, please don’t overlook the possibility that your favorite plant is potentially invasive. Land managers already have a long list of noxious and invasive plants to battle, so please don’t plant a species that could one day overwhelm a local ecosystem.

If you really get into the USDA plant zone rating system, visit the interactive map at www.plantmaps.com/usda_hardiness_zone_map.php. Click on your location in the map and load your plant hardiness zone…pretty cool stuff!

Photo of the Week – The Prairie Ecologist

Can you tell whether these are moths or butterflies?  How?

Find out here:   http://prairieecologist.com/2012/02/17/photo-of-the-week-february-17-2012/

Bighorns Now Exploring Their New Home

Bighorn sheep run from trailers into their new home northeast of Harrison following a 1,300-mile trip from Alberta, Canada, and the crowning moment in a week-long relocation effort of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

If you’re like me, you get a kick out of Allstate’s “Mayhem” commercials on TV. Our Nebraska Game and Parks Commission crew got to see true mayhem Tuesday when a 60-foot-square net was dropped on about 60 bighorn sheep.

About as many people, including 19 from Nebraska, sprinted from cover and worked their tails off to quickly blindfold, hobble and untangle those sheep from the dogpile under the net. Put simply, there was a lot of hair in there.

It all happened at the foot of the Canadian Rockies in Alberta, part of a relocation effort to bolster Nebraska’s sheep population. If you missed my first blog on this effort Monday, you can read about it here. They figured getting the sheep under the net would be easy after working around them the previous day and it was. The sheep would’ve walked on top of the net when it was reset if staff hadn’t hazed them off it. It was literally 4 minutes from when preparations were complete to when the net dropped.

Once untangled, most of the sheep, each being held down by a biologist or volunteer, remained calm until it was their turn to go though the process of getting fitted with ear tags and poked and prodded for a host of genetic and disease tests. About three and one-half hours after the rodeo began, 40 sheep were all loaded into horse trailers and headed south toward Nebraska.

But the stress, combined with unseasonably warm temperatures at the mine, was more than three sheep could handle: two died on site and one on the way back to Nebraska. No one wanted to see that. The professionals knew the risks from the start. The volunteers were warned in a pre-trapping meeting but the consultant leading the effort: If you don’t want to see something like that, he said, go home now. But if you want to help restore a population of sheep to its native range, this is the type of thing you do.

This morning we rolled back into the Cornhusker State, opened the doors to those trailers and watched those sheep scramble into their new home in Nebraska’s Pine Ridge northeast of Harrison, 1,300 miles from their old one. For our crew, watching those sheep head for the hills was the reward for a long but very worthwhile and fulfilling journey that began a week ago and covered 4,000 miles for those of us from eastern Nebraska.

“Thirty five years ago, I was in school hoping to do just what we were doing today,” said Mike Remund of Tecumseh, who, along with Dean Studnicka of Crawford, I covered those miles with in a 1-ton pickup. “This was way cooler than I thought it was going to be.”

I, on the other hand, had no idea I’d be covering a story like this when I was bitten by the journalism bug 20-plus years ago. While my back side might not agree, you can bet I’m glad I got the assignment.

You can read a bit more about the release here and a few video snippets from the capture on our YouTube page. I’ll have a story in NEBRASKAland in April. Or check out David Hendee’s story and Alyssa Shukar’s photos and videos at Omaha.com.

But if you want a real treat, lace up your hiking boots and head to the Pine Ridge or the Wildcat Hills to see the result of 30 years of bighorn sheep restoration efforts. Seeing a bighorn sheep running wild in Nebraska is pretty cool.

Greetings from the Great White North

With fresh alfalfa to eat, these bighorns don't care about photographers or much else. They met us at the site and stayed while we put up a drop net.

Greetings from Hinton, Alberta, at the foot of the Canadian Rockies and 1,800 miles from home, which is where I hope we’ll be headed Tuesday with four horse trailers full of bighorn sheep.

That’s why I headed north with sixteen other Nebraska Game and Parks Commission staffers last week. We wanted to expand our bighorn sheep population and the folks here inAlbertahad some to spare at a reclaimed coal mine where the new landscape fits a sheep’s needs perfectly.

Things get frosty at night at 6,000 feet.

We set drop nets today. It looks like the chances for success are high: about 90 bighorns fed on the alfalfa that has been brought to the bait site for the past week while we were setting up the net just a few yards away. I’m pretty sure I heard one say to another: “Pretty good hay, eh?” To which the other said: “Yea sure, you becha.” They just can’t resist it.

At the second site, only four fed while we worked, but 60 to 80 have been there in the days prior. The one thing that could spoil the soup is wolves chasing them off. We’re all still hoping to see one, just not at the bait site.

We’ll bait the site again in the morning and sit back and watch and wait. When enough sheep are under the 60-foot square net, an explosives technician used to blasting rock from the top of coal beds will trigger blasting caps on the rope holding up the net. Then the rodeo begins.

Our staff, as well as others from the mine, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (the province’s game and fish department), and a whole herd of volunteers will come running to the net, subdue the sheep and fit them with blinders to calm them down. When the net is folded back and sheep are immobilized with hobbles, they will be carried to a station where vets will draw blood and biologists will fit them with ear tags and radio or GPS collars before loading them in a trailer for the trip home.

If all goes well, we should be able to get the 40 or so sheep we’re hoping for in one drop, but we’ll drop a second net if necessary.

We’ll head south ASAP, stopping for the night in Lethbridge, just north of the border, so we can be there when USDA vets get to work Wednesday morning. From there, we’ll head toLusk,Wyoming, spending another night there so we don’t have to turn the sheep out at night. We’ll release them first thing Thursday in the Pine Ridge near Harrison, where they’ll find habitat that fits their needs, not to mention much milder winters.

It will be the fourth source of sheep forNebraska’s herds. The original herd, introduced into a pen at Fort Robinsonin 1981, came fromSouth Dakota. We brought sheep back fromColoradoto the Wildcat Hills southwest of Gering in 2003. Sheep from Montana were turned out in the Pine Ridge in 2004 and in the Wildcats in 2007.

This is my first chance to take part in the fun. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Of course, next time it might be 30 below. That might not be as much fun.

Hope to give you an update from the road tomorrow.

-Eric Fowler

Winter Cranes – Part Three

By Chris Helzer

It sure looks like we’re going to have sandhill cranes around for the entire winter.  In fact, the consensus among biologists is that the number of cranes has actually grown over the last couple of weeks.  There was even a sighting of three whooping cranes this week, a common event in April, but nearly unheard of in January.

If you haven’t been following this story, Nebraska’s Central Platte River is normally the site of a massive staging event of sandhill cranes each spring, when about 600,000 cranes converge on the river.  Those cranes roost overnight in the river and spend their days feeding and building body condition for the rest of their migration and the breeding season.  Typically, cranes begin arriving on the Platte in mid-February and are mostly gone by early April.

In the fall, cranes pass through the Platte Valley again on their way south, but they don’t usually appear in large numbers or stay very long.  This past fall, however, we kept seeing groups of cranes hanging around, and they never seemed to leave.  By December, it was clear that something unusual was happening.  I speculated in an earlier post about what might be going on, but no one really knows for sure.

This morning, on my drive out to the Platte River prairies, I stopped for a few minutes to look around one of our riverfront prairies just because I hadn’t been there for a while .  As I drove into the property, I got to watch three immature bald eagles chasing each other – apparently playing follow the leader – flying less than a foot apart from each other.  That was pretty impressive, but when the eagles got close to the river, they flushed several hundred cranes into the air.

The cranes circled a few times and returned to the river.  Grabbing my camera, I belly crawled through the tallgrass and shrubs along the river’s edge until I got into a position where I was well hidden but could see and photograph the cranes.  I spent the next 15 minutes or so watching them dance around and listening to calls I normally don’t get to hear in January.  There were only about 500 birds in front of me – a far cry from the tens of thousands that will be here in about a month – but that didn’t really diminish the experience.

 I couldn’t stay long because I was supposed to meet some other people, so after I’d delayed as long as I could, I belly crawled back away from the bank and made my way back to my vehicle.  On the remaining 6 miles of my drive, I saw another couple thousand cranes feeding in the fields and meadows.

 All in all, it was a pretty good start to the day.

 http://prairieecologist.com/2012/01/31/winter-cranes-part-three/