Blue Mounds Prairie Resource Specialist David Bryfogle shows the Prairie Passage sign that will be placed north of Luverne.
By Lori Ehde
By this time next year, ditches between Luverne and the Blue Mounds State Park will be painted with the colors of prairie wildflowers.
Native prairie species, such as purple and yellow cone flowers, blazing stars and prairie clovers, have been seeded in local highway right-of-ways as part of the National Prairie Passage.
Representatives from the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Department of Natural Resources unveiled official signage for the passage during a 9:30 a.m. ceremony Saturday at the park Interpretive Center.
The 2-by-2-foot sign features yellow prairie cone flowers, a native plant found across the prairie states. The blue and black background depicts the wide prairie skies and deep, rich soils.
The sign will be erected north of Luverne by fall. The same signs will be found along the Prairie Passage route, which takes in six states between the Gulf of Mexico and Canada.
The Blue Mounds segment is the first in the nation to be designated.
The goal of Prairie Passage is to promote awareness of prairie-related, natural, historic and cultural resources.
The Rock County portion planted this year includes both sides of Highway 75 from Luverne to County Road 20 (the state park road) and County Road 20 from Highway 75 to the park entrance.
County Road 8, which connects with the Interpretive Center driveway, was also seeded with wildflowers in the north ditch from Highway 75 east to Tom Birkeland's property on the curve.
In all, 200 acres of right-of-way were seeded with wildflowers and native prairie grasses. In addition, 400 acres of local public land were also seeded with native prairie grasses.
This first $750,000 portion of the passage was funded by the Federal Highway Administration and the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources.
For David Breyfogle, prairie resource specialist at the Blue Mounds State Park, Saturday's ceremony was a culmination of several years of public education and hard work.
"We're trying to reconnect people with their prairie heritage," he said. "Farmers here make their living on the land, but it was 10,000 years of prairie that built up that rich topsoil."
A kiosk at the Blue Mound Wayside Chapel will explain the details of Prairie Passage to stopping motorists.
The Prairie Passage project is just a small part of Breyfogle's prairie restoration efforts in the area. In the past few years, through controlled burns, herbicides and tilling, heÕs getting the state park prairies back to their original condition.
That means eradicating exotic species and replacing them with plants and grasses native to the Blue Mounds soil.
Local roadways were seeded in June, but wildflower growth was delayed by summer drought. Breyfogle said he's noticed some flowers are germinating, but most will not be noticeable for a couple of growing seasons.