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Successful first time seed harvest by Seedster of shoreline grass species on saline, boggy shore of Hailstone National Wildlife Refuge.

On July 21, 2010, at the request of Dr. Jim Bauder of Montana State University and Robert Dunn of Westscape Nursery, Native Seedsters, Inc. harvested seed from a native stand of Nuttall alkaligrass (Puccinellia nuttalliana). The harvest was done along the shores of Hailstone Lake in south-central Montana. The receding shoreline of the lake, following the past few years of relatively low precipitation and runoff, has been ideal for the growth of Puccinellia, in addition to making the shoreline dry enough to traverse with small equipment.

A small experimental Seedster on a 45 hp tractor harvested about 110 lbs of seed from a relatively small shoreline area. At about 2.1 million seeds to the pound, the USFWS funded Hailstone Phytoremediation team now has enough seed to reseed the entire lake bottom, if the lake were to be totally drained. Robert Dunn said “The Seedster performed beautifully, capturing the seed from more than 90% of the standing crop, with virtually no shatter. Hand harvest efforts would have only captured a fraction of this amount. With this years’ exceptional seed set, we did not want to miss the opportunity to make a seed harvest, which will prove invaluable in our future efforts with shoreline revegetation”.

Dunn, along with Jim Bauder, his graduate student Russell Smith, and Dr. Cathy Zabinski of Montana State University in Bozeman, are studying potential reclamation alternatives for the Hailstone Lake project. Applied Wetland Solutions, of Livingston, is also collaborating on the project.