Wild rice, a northwoods fixture that has increasingly spread along the Upper Mississippi River, could be coming to the La Crosse River marsh.
A local group wants to try growing the tall water grass in the marsh, not for harvesting but to improve the wetland habitat. The rice—actually seeds—is a significant fall food source for migrating waterfowl and other birds, while the foliage provides cover for all types of animal species above and below the waterline. The Mississippi River has a fair number of established wild rice beds, but the marsh now has only a couple of sites with plants, Friends of the La Crosse Marsh’s John Sullivan said.
“This is a pilot project,” Sullivan said, “to see if we can give it a little bit of a boost.”
The two selected sites, one just east of the “rabbit trail” off Myrick Park and the other planned along the rail lines through the marsh, would be seeded by canoe later this fall, after the bulk of the migrating geese and ducks have passed through, Sullivan told the Board of Public Works on Monday.
“I don’t want to seed it,” he later explained, “and then have the waterfowl eat it.”
Another seeding would be done in the spring, with the beds monitored for growth throughout the summer. If successful, the wild rice then should re-seed itself each year, said Sullivan, a retired water quality biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Sullivan already has secured a permit to harvest the seed from wild rice beds in the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, which has seen a sharp increase in wild rice growth over the past decade. The plant has gone from being found in only about 10 percent of the Pool 8 area to almost 30 percent of the 440 sites surveyed, especially to the south near the man-made islands between Brownsville, Minnesota, and Stoddard, said Deanne Drake, DNR vegetation specialist for Long Term Resource Monitoring Program on the Mississippi.
“It’s going gangbusters on the river,” said Drake, adding it’s not exactly clear what triggered the spread.
Both she and Sullivan noted wild rice tends to grow best where water regularly flows through, which could be a problem in the marsh. The group is looking at ways to create additional water circulation into the marsh if the pilot program shows promise, Sullivan said.