Site Preparation and Planting Methods for Prairie Restoration: Implications for Plant Community Diversity and Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) Establishment in Piedmont Prairies

Piedmont prairie is a distinct, fire-associated grassland community of the Southeastern United States that has been reduced to scattered remnants by land-use conversion and disturbance suppression. Restoring this understudied system requires practical guidance on which site preparation methods best support plant community establishment and which planting methods most reliably establish target forb species, questions that remain largely untested for Piedmont prairie specifically. We examined the effects of site-preparation treatments on plant community diversity and of planting methods on butterfly milkweed ( Asclepias tuberosa ) establishment in Piedmont prairie restoration. Site preparation treatments included tilling, herbicide application, mowing, prescribed fire, and seeded and unseeded controls. At the end of the second growing season, aboveground biomass was identified to species, harvested, dried, and weighed to assess treatment effects on community composition and productivity. Establishment of Asclepias tuberosa , a native milkweed of value to pollinators, was evaluated across four planting methods over two growing seasons: hand dispersal of seed, drilled seed, one-month-old transplants, and six-month-old transplants. Plant community diversity and composition did not differ significantly among site-preparation treatments, whereas transplanting significantly improved Asclepias tuberosa establishment compared with direct seeding. Our findings offer practical guidance for restoration practitioners working to establish Piedmont prairie communities. As grassland loss continues to be a global issue, scalable and cost-effective restoration methods such as these are urgently needed.