<\/p>\n
A<\/span>s previously noted<\/span> in this magazine, Eastern\u2019s Prairie Restoration Project aims to return a 120-acre parcel of university-owned farmland to its native habitat, thus creating a \u201cliving laboratory\u201d of restored Northern Palouse prairie proximate to the Cheney campus. Together with the Spokane and other local tribes \u2014 Native peoples who for millennia called these bounteous hills home \u2014 the project\u2019s ultimate goal is to help the entire university community better understand and appreciate this unique ecosystem.<\/span><\/p>\n This spring the project is closing in on a major milestone: clearing the ground for native\u00a0grasses by purging the soil of noxious weeds. \u201cIt has been really exciting to see the restoration develop to this point,\u201d says Erik\u00a0Budsberg, project leader and director of sustainability\u00a0at EWU.\u00a0Both graduate students and undergraduates have studied with the project, he says, \u201call to help us gain a better understanding of how to proceed to this next phase.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt has been really exciting to see the restoration develop to this point,\u201d says Erik\u00a0Budsberg, project leader and director of sustainability\u00a0at EWU.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n This \u201cnext phase\u201d will bring more visible progress. When the ground is clear, the entire acreage will be \u201cdrill seeded\u201d with a mix of wild grasses that student researchers have determined are resilient enough to form root systems. These systems will become the living foundation of the restored prairie.<\/span><\/p>\n While the weeding and seeding won\u2019t be completed until fall, project findings are already having a broader impact. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve learned has informed our decision\u00a0to develop\u00a0a\u00a0climate-resiliency landscaping master plan,\u201d\u00a0Budsberg says.\u00a0\u201cWe will be converting all of campus landscaping over to the native drought-tolerate plants that are more representative of the regional biodiversity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Back on the prairie, meanwhile, the \u201cliving-laboratory\u201d part of the mission is also making progress. Both on the site and in Eastern\u2019s research greenhouses, project participants say restoration-related activities have become an important source of interdisciplinary collaborations and investigations. \u201cThe research we\u2019ve been doing has been helping us understand the Prairie Restoration Project as a complete ecosystem resource,\u201d says Budsberg.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eastern\u2019s multi-year Prairie Restoration Project reaches a milestone. As previously noted in this magazine, Eastern\u2019s Prairie Restoration Project aims to return a 120-acre parcel of university-owned farmland to its native habitat, thus creating a \u201cliving laboratory\u201d of restored Northern Palouse prairie proximate to the Cheney campus. Together with the Spokane and other local tribes…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":484,"featured_media":2874,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-2805","stories","type-stories","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","stories_categories-campus","stories_categories-students","stories_tags-alumni","stories_tags-spring-summer-2024"],"acf":{"subheading":"","featured_image_format":"cover","display_featured_image":true,"display_byline":false,"display_date_published":false,"featured_video":"","Links":false,"Resources":false,"page_hide_sidebar":false,"page_enable_page_nav":false,"page_override_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/stories"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/484"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2811,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/stories\/2805\/revisions\/2811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ewu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}