Harvest the prairie at Pioneers Park weekend event

Help the once-great prairie keep growing by collecting seeds so they can be sent to where they're needed the most.

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – The prairie may not be what it was a century ago, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. In fact, if you squint, you can almost see covered wagons crossing the landscape.

Lincoln’s Pioneers Park could use your help to keep the prairie strong and growing because a lot has happened in the years since pioneers made their way west.

Jamie Kelley is a naturalist at the Pioneers Park Nature Center, so the prairie and everything in it are right up her alley. “Most of the prairies out here at Pioneers Park Nature Center are restored prairies”, she says. “So that means at one time they might have been a pasture or a crop field.”

What’s old is new again, however. These prairies are thriving, with some help.

“When the Nature Center and the City of Lincoln Parks and Rec started managing the land out here as prairie, we had it reseeded, and then we introduced grazing, and also prescribed burns as part of the management that we do”, explains Kelley.

The seeding aspect is a key part because that’s what the fall harvest seed collection is all about. That’s also the part that you’re able to help with. You’ll learn the best ways to collect seeds, and then you’re turned out into the wild landscape. With that in mind, you may want long sleeves, long pants, and gloves.

It’s been established that anyone can do it, and that reseeding is a part of the management that’s performed, but why is it needed?

Kelley explains the plan: “We can harvest the seeds of plants that we want to have out here on the prairie, and move them and distribute them in other areas of the prairie that might have less diversity: less flowering plants and less grasses.”

That’s where you come in. Collect the seeds, turn them in, and rest easy, knowing that your hard work will have a new life come spring. “We harvest from one area and later this winter we’ll distribute them in another spot”, says Kelley.

If you decide you’d like to help out, make sure to call over first, so they can plan for the right amount of people. The Nature Center’s phone number is 402-441-7895.