"A sodcutting crew began relocating a native tallgrass prairie area... to make way for a highway widening project.
Siloam Springs... a sod-cut-1 ting machine shaved off 1 / 2 inchthick chunks of tallgrass prairie, rolled them up and prepared to move them to the Chesney Prairie Natural Area about a mile away... the crew expected to cut off the 50-foot-wide, 900-foot-long area along the highway and stretch it back out across a previously plowed section of Chesney Prairie. .. to move 1. 6 acres of sod to the new site. The other 18 acres of Stump Prairie will remain along the highway that's being widened to four lanes. ... said [Joe] Woolbright... the contract steward for the nearby Chesney Prairie Natural Area. "These prairies are well worth saving. It's a botanical museum. Every year we find new species." It's the second time the [Arkansas Natural Heritage] commission has had prairie grass sod cut for relocation, and it's the first time it's been done in Northwest Arkansas. Stump Prairie is a part of Arkansas' finest, most pristine history, unaffected by the impact of man, Woolbright said. This prairie has never been plowed or grazed by cattle, allowing... grass-pink orchid [Calopogon tuberosus]... to thrive... the tallgrass prairies have been reduced. Rice farming in the Arkansas River Delta and other types of farming in other parts of the state wiped out most of Arkansas native prairie areas, said Doug Fletcher, the commission's chief of stewardship. The heritage commission estimates 600 acres of native Arkansas prairie remain. ... The Stump and Chesney prairies are the only remnants of what used to be the 12, 800-acre Lindsley Prairie that stretched from Gentry to Siloam Springs. ... The commission tackled a similar prairie relocation work in 2002. Two acres of prairie sod was cut from a site on the 900, 000-acre Grand Prairie in eastern Arkansas where a reservoir was planned, Fletcher said. The sod was moved to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff's Lonoke farm facility, he said." article URL : http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/185976/ ************** Regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
