Wilflower ID?

[Doug Galloway]

What flowers are pictured below?....showed up on edges of past burn units earlier this month...pretty but no clue to the specie....no ID help on the other site!

Some folks have asked me to clarify the cover crop chart as far as warm and cool season plants...let us try to make this simple...this is how you can evaluate diversity of ANY plant community and prescribe your own cover crop for soil health.

Let us say our goal here is to establish a food plot in a prior open native setting. Let's consider first what the soil wants....not what we want!

Well...I want take the opportunity here to teach the concept...these pics are from an Apr visit in the native units.

Cool season plants flower and set seed during spring to early summer...both plants pictured are broadleafs....so we can make a checkmark under the category of 'cool season broadleafs'. It isn't necessary to know the exact plant species...just a grass or a broadleaf...legumes are broadleaf plants which you may want to separate or not. What we need to know is the number of different cool season broadleafs, or cool season grasses, (or cool season legumes) present in that plant community....are numbers fairly equal?....or are we heavy on grasses?....does the area look more like a grassy field?...or a weed patch?

Warm season plants flower and set seed during late summer to early fall.....do the same plant check-off at that time....what plants are most abundant?.....which are lacking?...does the area look more like a grassy field?...or a weed patch?

Over the winter we look at our notes....which indicated we were heavy on cool season broadleafs, light on cool season grasses, heavy on warm season broadleafs and light on warm season grasses.....this sound more like a weed patch than and grassy field...doesn't it? Good, that is a simple cover crop mix suggestion for the first few years of the plot. Focus on the plants the area was lacking soooo....plant spring mixes heavier on the grass than the broadleaf side.....plant fall mixes heavier on the grass side also! In a few years, you will balance in the soil life community......and can move onto whatever rotation etc which you choose...but always be cognizant of the direction Nature is moving!

This is the EXACT fashion which early to mid-phase natural succession play out....plant community dynamics which really seem to benefit the animal.....an ebb and flow of broadleaves and grasses over time.....sometimes the plant community is balanced (~ 50:50 = healthy) and sometimes skewed one direction or the other! This is EXACTLY how the Haney soil test works....balancing of soil for health via a cover crop mix predicted need!

I will bet good money...that if one considers his recent few years of plot history, then he can predict the direction of weed encroachment....and the necessary time frame of crop rotation etc.

Either 'roll with the flow'....or....'try and fight the tide'!

 

[mikmaze]

second is shooting star, first one has me scratchin my head for now.

 

[jwill1776]

To me the pink one looks like Prairie Phlox, at least the flower does but the leaf looks wrong compared to what I have seen for Prairie Phlox.

 

[jwill1776]

Ok, based on the flower and leafs I am going with Rose Vervain for the pink one.

 

[Turkey Creek]

I was thinking a phlox of some type on the first one as well. I am too lazy to go dig out an id book!

 

[dipper]

Doug this is about the best in depth though we can give to our property. I've been thinking about this native regeneration aspect on my property since I have been listening to you. If I control the nasty cool season grass, like quack. My soil produces native plants that will only thrive on sand or gravel. This soil health indicator should be of no surprise, I'm on young soil. The last ice age, glaciers transformed my landscape. It removed fertile soil, but gave us hilly sand. I'm blessed to have 5 glacial lakes on my property, that hold huge fish like crappie and bluegill and trout. Since local soil is so sandy local agriculture has become dependent on irrigation. We have an abundance of groundwater due to those glaciers seeping into the soil. Unfortunately agriculture is startng to deplete our abundance of groundwater, with high capacity wells. It is killing the soil and lowland habitat, and life that can't take being watered every other day.
Being able to identify vascular plants that naturally thrive, has been a great resource to identify my soils weakness. I am adding organic material to my soil that has never happened since the land was originally cleared 100 ysArs ago.
Thank you Doug for opening up my eyes. We all need to become smarter, especially when the world wide demand for food is going to be unsustainable very soon.

 

[Alpha Doe]

Flower looks like phlox...but leaf looks like wild geranium...:confused:

 

[phil@thesidehill]

i was also thinking a phlox on the first one....looks like some i have on property.

After reading this thread your post on my LC Brassica thread makes WAY MORE sense. A few questions/clarifications though....

1) you say to inventory current plant community based on the broad categories of Cool season broadleaf/grass and then warm season broadleaf/grass. this is where i need some clarification....you say that your plantings/rotations should go to the opposite of the dominate category...ie if you have more cool/warm season broadleaf you should go to a cool/warm season grass rotation. Just want to make sure i'm reading that correctly.

2) would the above suggested rotational guide be "going with the flow" or "fighting the tide". If it was all broadleaf and you switch to grass would that be going against what nature had going on in that area AT THAT TIME, or would it being going with the flow of what nature has going on in that area OVER TIME? ie the natural ebb and flow of broadleaf and grass?

3) for sake of example....the area has mainly broadleaf prior to conversion to an established plot, but some grasses are also present. would doing something like using a rotation of mixes similar to LC's (Brassica mix, Small Grain Mix, and a legume planting. the first two rotate back and forth yearly and the third stays as is for a few years then gets into the rotation of the other two) be similar if the percetage of broadleaf to grass mimics what you see naturally occurring. it may not be spread out over the entire plot area but in designated strips which are rotated back and forth over the course of years. Wouldn't this be essentially the same process for the soil as to what you are recommending.

I think i was able to communicate my ideas via this thread....but maybe it doesn't quite convey the way i hope it to.

 

[Doug Galloway]

i was also thinking a phlox on the first one....looks like some i have on property.

After reading this thread your post on my LC Brassica thread makes WAY MORE sense. A few questions/clarifications though....

1) you say to inventory current plant community based on the broad categories of Cool season broadleaf/grass and then warm season broadleaf/grass. this is where i need some clarification....you say that your plantings/rotations should go to the opposite of the dominate category...ie if you have more cool/warm season broadleaf you should go to a cool/warm season grass rotation. Just want to make sure i'm reading that correctly.

Yes....this has to do with the C:N ratio in the soil....when broadleafs abound, N is abundant relative to C....when grasses abound, then C is more abundant than N. The soil C:N ratio is the premise of what you are doing and the plant community tells you where you are and the direction to go with mixed covers.....you will need a significant portion of broadleafs as legumes to get the soil N up (or use fertilizer).

Say you do your pre-plot inventory.....the rough makeup of the native plant community is 70% grass and 30% broadleaf across both cool and warm seasons. Then we want our mix to be just the opposite.....30% grass and 70% broadleaf. Do this both with cool and warm season mixes for the first 2 years. Then, you can move to whatever crop rotation you want keeping the balance of grass and broadleaf in mind. Our goal here is to balance the soil C:N and 'prime' ALL of soil life in the first two years....so that in the future the soil more easily accepts anything we plant!

2) would the above suggested rotational guide be "going with the flow" or "fighting the tide". If it was all broadleaf and you switch to grass would that be going against what nature had going on in that area AT THAT TIME, or would it being going with the flow of what nature has going on in that area OVER TIME? ie the natural ebb and flow of broadleaf and grass?

You are starting to get it!....rolling with the flow! This cover crop calculator will help.....the effective% column is where to look.
http://greencoverseed.com/smartmix-calculator/

3) for sake of example....the area has mainly broadleaf prior to conversion to an established plot, but some grasses are also present. would doing something like using a rotation of mixes similar to LC's (Brassica mix, Small Grain Mix, and a legume planting. the first two rotate back and forth yearly and the third stays as is for a few years then gets into the rotation of the other two) be similar if the percetage of broadleaf to grass mimics what you see naturally occurring. it may not be spread out over the entire plot area but in designated strips which are rotated back and forth over the course of years. Wouldn't this be essentially the same process for the soil as to what you are recommending.

Let us take a critical look at LCs mixes...you can put them in the calculator to get the effective %s:

rye mix is all cool season (CS) plants.....about 70% grass and 30% broadleaf

brassica mix is 100% CS broadleaf

oat/berseem is say 80% CS grass...20% CS broadleaf

Then there is a strip of perennial CS clover.

What is missing?....the entire rotation is TOTALLY VOID of warm season (WS) components!....have you ever naturally seen a totally cool season plant prairie long term?....highly unlikely. So the soil life associated with warm season plants in a soil under the LC program is NEVER fed a diet of warm season plant roots...we are missing some soil potential...and long term imbalance!

One option is to follow the brassica blend with a warm season grass/broadleaf mix....say milo/peas or corn/beans.

Say you don't want to screw with summer plots and fencing...okay try this!

Add 1-2 lbs of milo or millet to the brassica blend....yeah they will grow together....frost will take care of the WS annuals, fully release brassica, and we sill have some grass residue come spring. Have you ever seen a foxtail issue in brassica?....what is foxtail?...a warm season millet....aka Nature's balancing act!

We can add a few lbs of warm season broadleafs into the rye mix also....yes, I play with leftover spring seed in the fall plantings.....a few lbs of sunflower, cowpea, or BW....sub them for some of the winter peas....this gives us the warm season broadleaf component....deer or frost will take care of the WS broadleafs.

I think i was able to communicate my ideas via this thread....but maybe it doesn't quite convey the way i hope it to.

You should be able to understand better now. WE want to 'initially prime' soil life with roots from all 4 major plant classes striving to balance against the initial native plant community. Then we can also maintain that prime by using low rates of WS plants in a cool season mix...or using a spring planting of WS plants in the rotation.

I have just started to play with this.

Gail Fuller (Emporia KS)....is using about 20% warm season mix : 80% cool season mix in his fall planted covers.

You don't need to be smart to do this....don't get hung up on exact %s either (Nature doesn't)....just observe your local plant communities, watch things grow....try new things in your old routine....embrace but don't fear failure!

 

[phil@thesidehill]

You should be able to understand better now. WE want to 'initially prime' soil life with roots from all 4 major plant classes striving to balance against the initial native plant community. Then we can also maintain that prime by using low rates of WS plants in a cool season mix...or using a spring planting of WS plants in the rotation.

I have just started to play with this.

Gail Fuller (Emporia KS)....is using about 20% warm season mix : 80% cool season mix in his fall planted covers.

You don't need to be smart to do this....don't get hung up on exact %s either (Nature doesn't)....just observe your local plant communities, watch things grow....try new things in your old routine....embrace but don't fear failure!

I gotcha now. Just wanted some clarification to make sure i was catchin' your drift.

 

[Native Hunter]

Hey Doug, as some others have already stated, I'm fairly sure the first one is Rose Verbena (Glandularia canadensis), and the second one is Shooting Star (Dodecatheon meadia).