In 1980, as part of my field ecology internship with the International Crane Foundation's (ICF) prairie restoration project, my supervisor Konrad Liegel and I divided our seed collection between an “experimental” fall plot of one acre and a much larger planting the following spring. This was the second planting on the newly purchased farm before any infrastructure was built, and at a time few practitioners saw fall plantings as a good alternative to the traditional spring ones. We didn't know then how pivotal this experiment would be.

These days I am spending a lot of time in the seed shed as the mountains of harvested seed roll in. We are in the ‘fluff and stuff’ stage of seed processing. 

Monarch populations have decreased significantly, and current recovery plans call for billions of stems of milkweed to be established. You can help by collecting your milkweed seed this fall and support regional effort to restore Milkweed for Monarchs.