The Institute for Applied Ecology has been working at McGowan Meadow since 2005. Work at McGowan Meadow has followed three pathways each with its own corresponding report:
- Monitoring and augmentation of the BLM sensitive species Sidalcea campestris (Blakeley-Smith
and Kaye 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010a), - Seed Collection via the Seeds of Success Program (Blakeley-Smith 2010b), and
- Habitat restoration (Blakeley-Smith 2008b, 2009 and 2010).
This report covers all of the activities completed during 2011 under the habitat restoration project.
Restoration Goal
The main goal for McGowan Meadow is to actively restore regionally rare prairie habitat by controlling priority invasive species, removing encroaching sapling trees and shrubs, and augmenting native plant populations through direct seeding and out-planting of nursery grown plugs.
Restoration Strategy
In 2005 the Native Plant Conservation Program of the Oregon Department of Agriculture developed a prairie habitat assessment with management recommendations for McGowan Meadow(Mitchell et al. 2005). The Institute for Applied Ecology conducted restoration activities in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and followed recommendations put forth in the ODA document. The overall restoration strategy for McGowan Meadow includes sensitive plant species monitoring, brush and invasive species control, seed collection, plug production, plug planting, and seeding.