So circling back to the discussion on the possibility of dog fennel being a keystone specie……If you look at the early successional plant communities and the change in species composition from one successional stage to the next…..grasses tend to be what I'd call the foundation plants ….They tend to be deep rooted plants that hold the soil intact and supply the food chain with carbon….In the first successional stage crabgrass played this role in my field…..Now that my field has progressed out of that first stage and onto more fertile conditions with more stage 2 plants….the crabgrass has slowly disappeared……

So what is now taking its place as the “grass” component of the summer mix……dog fennel. Eventually there will likely be things like switchgrass, Indian grass, big blue stem, etc…..that will come in and make up the grass component when the field reaches more of a climax condition…..However, during this time in the middle between the true pioneer species and climax species…we're (talking about repairing soil now keep in mind)…the dog fennel is our foundation plant …..When I look at it growing in my field I see it from an engineering standpoint. It looks to me like huge pillars that’s holding the soil intact as well as being one of our main carbon producers…..just look at the root masses. Not only that but its transitioning us away from the solid mat of grass like crabgrass and into more of a bunch grass type situation where other plants species have room to grow in its understory…..as well as allowing wildlife room to move around and be sheltered underneath it.

Another key role I think dog fennel is playing has to do with helping the whole plant community with soil moisture management. If you’ll watch when we go through a drought….dog fennel will be the last thing to suffer....if it ever does. I’ve seen us in severe drought where everything was brown yet the dog fennel was still green. It apparently doesn’t require massive amounts of moisture to grow or either its tapping into deep reserves. I think it does two things to help with moisture management. 1) I think it forms a symbiotic relationship with the other plants through m. fungi which allow the other plants to access the moisture that the dog fennel is pulling from the soil. I know I’ve seen some kind of definite relationship between dog fennel and clover. 2) The other way in which I think its helps the other plants is simply through providing shade.

I’ll stop there for now so as not to get too long………