Milkweed will head to prison before being put to good use

Milkweed will head to prison before being put to good use
File

The monarch butterfly has seen its numbers fall drastically over the past several years, so a concerted effort has been made to increase its meal ticket, the milkweed plant.

                        

Drive down any country road in Holmes and Wayne counties and you are bound to see milkweed with its large pods perched high atop stalks filled with large green leaves.

While milkweed might seem like it’s everywhere, there is a push right now for people to replant it because milkweed is the only food source for the monarch butterfly, which is decreasing in population right now at an alarming rate.

As a way to enhance the milkweed population and thus hopefully increase the monarch butterfly population, Holmes County Soil & Water Conservation District put forth a collection time, asking people to bring in milkweed seed pods so they can be replanted in productive areas where the plant will be allowed to grow and prosper.

The Ohio Pollinator Habitat Initiative project started in 2015 as a seven-county pilot, and since that time hundreds of Ohioans have worked together collecting thousands of pods across the state.

Volunteers have collected approximately 5,000 gallons of common milkweed seed pods, totaling more than 22 million seeds.

Milkweed is the only host plant for the monarch butterfly for egg laying and caterpillar rearing. It also serves as a food source for monarchs as well as many other pollinator species. The disappearance of milkweed across the U.S. has contributed to the 80 percent decline of the eastern monarch butterfly population over the last 20 years.

The Holmes SWCD is working in conjunction with the Ohio Division of Wildlife, which is spearheading the collection event. The pods collected throughout the collection period will join seeds collected from all over Ohio.

The program runs through the end of October, and with that time approaching, the question becomes what happens next?

According to Michelle Wood, program administrator at Holmes SWCD, what takes place next is something most people would never guess.

“They actually take the pods to a prison in Ohio and the inmates separate out the fluff from the seed and then they send the seed back to the Ohio Pollinator Initiative,” Wood said. “The Ohio Pollinator Initiative group then has volunteers who will take the seed and sew it in right-of-ways throughout the state.”

Wood said a portion of the seeds also will return to their office, where they can hand it out to anyone who requests some.

“We’ve had the Holmes County Engineer’s Office make a request, some of the area garden clubs have requested some, teachers and others,” Wood said. “It is part of the bigger initiative to make milkweed more available to people who can in turn make it more available to monarch butterflies.”

Wood said while the county and townships used to mow down existing milkweed on the county’s roadways, there is an ongoing effort to leave as much of the milkweed up as possible along roads.

“We’ve come to realize that not everything needs to be mowed and absolutely perfect,” Wood said. “It’s OK to let things grow naturally and let the habitat provide for the butterflies.”

Wood said pollination plays a key role in so many ways, and butterflies are a big part of that pollination process.

“Monarchs are beautiful, and they do play a key role in the pollination process, which means a great deal to our ecology,” Wood said. “It’s pretty neat to see the way people have gotten behind this program and want to play a role in making sure that monarchs have the habitat and food they need to thrive.”


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