Planting on the Palouse prairie

UI Sustainability Center partners with Palouse Conservation District to replant native vegetation

A short walk around Moscow is all the proof students need to know the Palouse prairie is in serious danger of extinction, said Kyle Cooper, volunteer coordinator for the University of Idaho Sustainability Center.

Covered with farms and monoculture, he said the Palouse has historically been valued and abused for dry-land agriculture because of its productivity and high nutrient content.

Cooper said the program “Get Rooted” is all about reversing the trend of depleting soil and decreasing diversity of the Palouse. According to Cooper, the Palouse prairie is one of the most endangered ecosystems, with less than 1 percent remaining.

“When we’re talking about planting native vegetation, we’re trying to instill resiliency in that ecosystem so that it can persist on its own, rather than having to be overly managed,” he said.

From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, 12 volunteers with the UI Sustainability Center took part in the fourth and final Get Rooted event of the semester. They joined four employees of the Palouse Conservation District — including two WSU interns — one Americorps volunteer and the natural resources coordinator for the Palouse Conservation District, Drew Schuldt, to enact change for the Palouse Prairie.

The initial goal of the event was to restore Paradise Creek, but recent weather conditions pushed the groups further into Washington, where a landowner was building a wetland on his property. The students and Palouse Conservation District employees spent their time replanting species at three spots along the creek where bulldozers had disturbed the prairie.

“It’s important to replant what was destroyed,” said Jesus Iniguez, volunteer from Kappa Sigma. “We need trees, especially up here.”

The Palouse Conservation District provided immature shrubs and saplings, which were between one and two years old, from Plants of the Wild, a native vegetation nursery based in Washington. The plants were chosen based on the native plants in the area including ponderosa pines, lodgepole pines, chokecherry, woods’ rose, snowberry and alder.

Cooper said based on the plant species, it could take anywhere from a few years to a few decades for a plant to reach maturity in its new ecosystem. However, the plants become useful to the environment long before maturity. In this case, the roots, which start spreading almost immediately, are vital for stabilizing the stream bank and wetland, he said.

“I think what the landowner is doing here is a really important project,” said Schuldt, who started working with UI’s Get Rooted program three years ago. “He’s stabilizing stream banks and adding habitats. Getting a wetland established is just a really good water quality project. The Palouse isn’t plentiful with wetlands, being as dry as it is.”

Ryan Bird, an intern with the Palouse Conservation District, said the wetlands and plants do more than increase water quality. When the trees mature, they also provide habitats for organisms and strengthen the diversity of the landscape.

Cody Satterthwait, volunteer and member of Kappa Sigma, said Get Rooted is a camaraderie activity that benefits the community and is ecologically important. According to Satterthwait, his fraternity family had fun while making a positive change.

“It’s about getting people involved and getting them to learn about something that they didn’t know about and maybe see some places that they don’t get to see on a regular basis,” Schuldt said.

Though this event didn’t reach record numbers, with the biggest Get Rooted boasting 82 volunteers, Cooper said the work that was completed was quite the undertaking.

“The event went really well. We only had 12 people, and we planted over 200 plants, and we normally don’t see those numbers,” Cooper said. “This was really an exceptional event.”

Alyssa Baugh can be reached at [email protected]