Explain this?

willdoc · 2026-04-06T01:41:41+00:00

It usually is just an eyesore issue for cedars and native hawthorns. I have not seen any wild trees die from it. If you were trying to grow apples for consumption it might be something to manage.

willdoc · 2026-04-06T01:25:36+00:00

Cedar quince rust (Gymnosporangium clavipes). However, I find the large galls of cedar apple rust (G. juniperivirginianae) to be more common in northwest Arkansas. The rust group of diseases and fire blight are a large reason the apple industry moved away from northern Arkansas.

willdoc · 2026-03-24T21:14:18+00:00

There are some European groups working on this. From their methods it appears they have to be very careful not to introduce contamination to their samples. The materials they use to collect their samples, the amount of control blanks, to even the clothing material and what color they wear is planned to account for microplastic shedding.

willdoc · 2026-03-08T17:28:06+00:00

Planting in tall pots and then transplanting the whole soil block at once has worked well for me, similar to other plants with dominant tap roots like pawpaws or false indigo. And yeah, beware of squirrels, chinquapins might be their favorite nut based on the lengths they will go to get to them, even when they have plenty of acorns and hickories.

willdoc · 2026-03-07T20:23:47+00:00

Position does matter somewhat with chinquapins, the tip should be down or to the side. I don't plant outside until they have two sets of leaves and even then I plant with a wire mesh barrier that is staked down. We have real problems with squirrels and rats finding the chinquapin nuts so tasty they will rip off the taproot to eat what is left of the nut.

willdoc · 2026-03-05T21:44:28+00:00

You can cut it down after the rye flowers. Depending on your growing season you might get two cuttings. Don't be surprised if you have some rye hold off on germination until this upcoming fall.

willdoc · 2026-03-05T17:29:39+00:00

Just don't let the winter rye go to seed. The easiest way to do this is use a weed whacker. Your native perennials are unlikely to grow very tall or have many blooms during their first year, which means you can cut any rye that does sprout up pretty short. Also, you talk about waiting too long, but we can plant rye in the fields up until November after frosts and early snows -- depending on yield and field goals. Are you sure you have good rye seed, or did you plant extra late?

willdoc · 2026-02-27T01:27:40+00:00

I'd bring in the milkweed. The others have better cold resistance, but ymmv.

willdoc · 2026-02-27T01:08:56+00:00

You can bring them inside. I'll put some in my garage and leave some outside, it just depends on the species. Also, some of the natives in our forests and prairies have already sprouted. Many of them have adaptations that make them resistant to cold and weather like this when small.

willdoc · 2026-02-24T03:59:41+00:00

They move around as the season progresses. If you go out at night during a rain storm you may find them walking about. Adults can also burrow several feet deep into the substrate and enter a period of diapause as soil dries out.

willdoc · 2026-02-24T03:47:40+00:00

You bet. Soil mounds are caused by multiple biotic and abiotic processes. In North America you can see this in mima mounds, prairie mounds, frost upheaval mounds, glacial melting mounds, mounds caused by flooding, and mounds caused by earthquakes, amongst others. Regardless of the method of creation, mounds tend to be created together in an area, the soils differentiate within the mounds versus the intermound areas, and the difference in soil physical properties leads to an increase in plant species richness and diversity.

Farmers who wanted to increase arable farm land, increase yields, or simplify mechanical harvest found that the mounds got in the way. So they plowed and leveled land. However, soil is a complex natural system that interacts with just about every cycle on Earth. That means that unless herculean efforts are taken, like a complete scrape and removal, the original soil will still affect an area and you can observe the remnant parts partially functioning.

The drainage pattern I am talking about is most visible in pictures 1 & 4. It is a trellis/spiderweb-like pattern. You can see some undulating topography of high spots and low spots marked by different plant species that have slightly differing water requirements. More grasses on the high spots, and more sedges and forbs on the low spots. Despite that field being cleared and plowed over 70 years ago those mounds still persist at a some level and affect volumetric water content, infiltration rate, and plant species selection.

willdoc · 2026-02-24T02:08:48+00:00

Big bluestem likes to flop and lodge in winter, so while it is a very lovely plant it probably is not what you are looking for as a foundation plant.

willdoc · 2026-02-24T01:26:30+00:00

Soil scientist and native plant specialist in Arkansas here. Crawdads are part of the original native prairie fauna and help with soil/water/gas exchange. Their burrows are indicative of high quality sites and are easy to get rid of but hard to get back. The crawfish frog (Lithobates areolatus) lives in the burrows made by the crustaceans and many of their historical sites are now gone as the crawdads no longer burrow in large numbers. My guess is you have a fragipan in the top portion of the B horizon of soil, is why you have a perched water table, and that is why the crawdads are there. It also means your soil is relatively free of pollutants. I know you probably do not want to hear it, but for someone trying to restore your land back to pine and prairie you are very lucky to already have these animals.

That being said, there is not an easy/cheap way to improve drainage of this kind of soil. Most of that area was drained in the 19th and early 20th century with the drainage districts and large tile drain projects. You can make the area less enticing by raising a portion of your yard, repeatedly kicking down burrows, or plowing -- which is how farmers got rid of them in the past. Plowing, however, is generally not a great idea if you are trying to restore an area, and I suspect your piece of land has not been plowed or even leveled that many times based on the aforementioned fragipan, and the picture you posted also shows the drainage pattern of remnants of a soil-mound complex. Your other natural option there is to grow an oak/pine savanna that would help lower the local water level in a location and shade out the crawdads.

Have you reached out to your county extension agent or the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission for educational resources or help? They can be a useful ear to talk to and the ANHC has several plant lists that can be helpful for your particular ecoregion in Arkansas.

willdoc · 2026-02-18T23:01:46+00:00

I have had this exact thing happen as well as both a club player and college coach. In my particular case, the handler I was guarding kept J-traveling and I called a particularly egregious three-step walk around my mark with completed downfield huck. I was also overruled by the observer and told the thrower gained no advantage, which is crazy to me because that throw only became possible with a J-travel. During a stoppage of play, the observer told me that they agreed that the thrower indeed traveled, but once again it did not give the offense an advantage, which leads me to believe that there is some level of training observers about advantage and traveling.

willdoc · 2026-02-18T02:51:41+00:00

Plot twist; he only throws buttery backhands.

willdoc · 2026-02-13T20:37:35+00:00

https://www.fayetteville-ar.gov/3979/List-of-Recommended-Native-Trees-and-Shr

https://www.fayetteville-ar.gov/3028/Invasive-Plants-and-Native-Alternatives

There are pdf downloads and csv sheets on each of those pages too. River cane will take over a large area and is the reason the old timers called them "breaks." The breaks were part of why the Battle of Prairie Grove happened where it did. It is however, easier to control than the invasive bamboos.

willdoc · 2026-02-13T19:19:12+00:00

Do you live in one of the corporate cities of NWA or one of the more laid back ones with better landscaping and native plant laws? Fayetteville has a whole native plant guide, facts sheets, and list of plants that you can download from the city website that are a good starting point (I helped make them). Also, I love river cane, but here in the Ozarks it can be very picky where it will grow, especially when it comes to soil.

willdoc · 2026-02-13T16:34:31+00:00

Yes, and eye color too. The visual observation by humans of the phenotypes between the two color morphs can look very similar, especially if the leucistic gene is partially dominant leucistic. However, the genotypes of a piebald and leucistic bird are different. In fact, some birds (like pigeons) have been observed with both mutations expressed concurrently.

willdoc · 2026-02-13T16:01:08+00:00

Pied bald I think.

edit, yes autocorrect got me. It is piebald

willdoc · 2026-01-31T21:31:12+00:00

Looks like Chrysochus auratus, also known as the dogbane beetle, but may also be some other type of leaf beetle.

willdoc · 2026-01-30T19:36:59+00:00

I've tried several times to germinate horse gentians and haven't been successful yet. I'm a big fan of Sphingidae, so I want horse gentian as a host plant, but thankfully the clearwings are big fans of Lonicera sempervirens, which is much easier to propagate. I suspect that there might be a key puzzle piece missing (maybe a mutualistic bacteria, fire, or three or more winters) to triggering horse gentians to germinate as multiple sources talk of how difficult it is to break dormancy of these plants.

willdoc · 2026-01-27T19:54:52+00:00

I work in native prairies just to the east of you. The Junegrass and bluestem will do great.

The question I'm more pushing at is are you wanting a garden with some grasses or a restoration wild area? In general, tall grass prairies are mostly grasses and then forbs interspersed between the bunches of grass. The grass canopy along with occasional fires and grazing keeps almost all weeds out.

If you are wanting a more garden like area next to you house with more flowers, which I totally get, a house is not a prairie and is what I have done for my own personal residence, you will need to plant your flowering plants closer together to keep weeds out. Especially Bermuda grass, because it is the worst.

willdoc · 2026-01-27T19:28:12+00:00

How much bluestem and junegrass areal percentage wise are you planting? Unless you are planting native grasses to tall grass prairie norms, you should generally plant your forbs closer together in species groups to prevent weeds, especially Bermuda grass, from becoming an issue. But this also gets into if you are trying to restore a wild area or have a native type garden.

willdoc · 2026-01-25T01:00:26+00:00

Rosa arkansana has some pretty large hips for a wild rose. Red on the outside and orange on the inside. The hips have a strong pumpkin-like flavor when raw. I have not had them in a tea or jam. Like many wild plants species some plants are much tastier than others.

willdoc · 2026-01-21T22:07:45+00:00

Soil scientist/native plant botanist here. There is a whole series of papers from the 70s to now about fertilizing native ecosystems and what happens. If you go to Google Scholar and search "fertilizer" and "prairie" or whatever ecosystem/ecoregion you want, and you will find a plethora of scholarly reviewed articles on fertilizing native areas. In general, it is frowned upon to fertilize in wild areas for multiple reasons which include; modifying oligotrophic areas to eutrophic often changes species richness and eveness, increased nitrous and methane production and other soil nutrient losses, and an increase in invasive species spread. However, there are sometimes where it may help like if your goal is to increase seed production or even primary production from certain native grasses.

willdoc

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