40 Tom Landis – Monarch Butterflies in Southwestern Oregon (in English)

Speaker 1: From the Oregon State University Extension Service, this is Pollination, a podcast that tells the stories of researchers, land managers, and concerned citizens making bold strides to improve the health of pollinators. I'm your host, Dr. Adoni Melopoulos, assistant professor in pollinator health in the Department of Horticulture. Regrettably, we have a pretty bee focus here on pollination and we tried to remedy this a few episodes ago with Allison Center from the North American Butterfly Association this week we're going to take another bold step into butterflies traveling down to Southern Oregon to talk with Tom Landis. Now Tom has a PhD in forest ecology and he's worked for over 30 years as a nursery specialist for the USDA Forest Service.

He now runs Native Plant Nursery Consulting but he's also a member of the Southern Oregon Monarch Advocates. In this episode, Tom is going to walk us through the basic biology of monarch butterflies but he's also going to give us a rundown on these things called monarch waystations which are these small pieces of habitat that provide a place, a safe place for monarch butterflies to breed but also to nectar. Tom knows a lot about monarch butterflies. This episode's full of some great natural history about these butterflies but also being somebody with a lot of experience with growing plants in his career, he has some excellent practical tips for how you can get waystations growing in your backyard. I am at the Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center.

We're on the road again and I'm really excited to be sitting here in the library across from Tom. We're going to talk about monarchs today. Welcome to pollination. Oh, good. Now, we've just had our first show on butterflies so you have to understand I'm relatively new to all this. That's fine.

I am too. But when I think about monarchs, I think about this big, iconic butterfly that's migrating from the Midwest to Mexico and I don't think about Oregon. Where are the monarchs that travel through Western Oregon right now and when will they be coming back?

Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question. Most people think of the Eastern monarch. Basically, there are two subpopulations, Eastern and Western and basically it's the Rocky Mountains that divide them. Our Western monarchs are primarily from the Rockies West and instead of going to Mexico, they go to the California coast over winter from around Bodega Bay, north of the Bay Area, all the way down to just about northern Baja. So they don't go to Mexico. They were winter here.

Speaker 1: If we were to go to California right now, what would we see?

Speaker 2: If you went to places like Santa Barbara or Santa Cruz where the active colonies are, on a warm day, you'd actually see some monarchs flying around. They do get active but on cool, wet days and at night, they hover together or actually close to one another in what they call clusters and they actually hang from trees. Really? Yeah, really, really cool looking. So on a cold day, they're actually hard to see because their wings are all compressed and they appear very drab, and on a warm day, they'll actually fly around and go get water.

Speaker 1: Okay, and so when do we start to see them up here?

Speaker 2: When they... So right now, they're not reproductive. They're just hanging out, literally hanging out. They do, in California, they do actually nectar a little bit. There are some plants like ice plants of all things and eucalyptus flowers. So on a warm day, they can get some nectar but generally, they don't eat much during the winter. They're just hanging out and hibernating as it would be. And in about February and March, and I've seen online, they're already starting to mate now. So as the days get longer, it gets warmer, they get active and they begin to mate. And then there are actually four generations, like most insects, there are generations per year. So this over winter generation, they mate in February and March.

So they'd fly inland in California and lay eggs on milkweed. And that's kind of a tough one because as you imagine, that time of year, not much coming up. But there are a couple of native California species of milkweed that start growing in March.

And so, you know, that's hard for them. So they fly in, they'll find milkweed, lay eggs, and then that'll be the first generation. So those will hatch into caterpillars, and go through it. The second generation then would fly east and north.

So those are the ones we would see. The earliest we've ever seen them here in southern Oregon is April, late April. But generally, in May and June, we see the second generation. Then again, they look for milkweed, lay eggs, and then they actually have two more generations, the third and fourth generations. So we see them here from late April until almost early November. And that's when they fly back down and start the whole process. So those would, the fourth generation, they call the super generation, they fly back and overwinter and then start the whole process.

Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. Okay. And so those super generations, that's something I didn't know. So those aren't the ones that come back. They are, it's their, their young.

Speaker 2: They're great, great grandparents, as it would be. Yeah. And that's what's kind of amazing about Monarch because you think of that fourth generation, they're flying back to where their great, great grandparents came from and they've never been there before. That is amazing. So how do they know how to, you know, that's what's kind of cool about them?

Speaker 1: That is really remarkable. And I guess, you know, we've talked a little bit about their biology in, in sort of their trips back and forth. Maybe walk us through in a little bit more detail like the, you know, they find milkweed, we'll just give us a little bit more on that biology and where are these critical points that really determine whether a population is going to increase or it's going to decrease? Sure.

Speaker 2: Well, just a little bit about Monarchs first, they're, they're iconic, they're a tropical butterfly. A lot of people don't realize that. So they can't tolerate cold weather. So they have to migrate. And so they, they've adapted to go as far as southern British Columbia. We see them here on the west coast in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia mid-summer.

But then they all have to go back to California because they can't tolerate freezing temperatures. The adult butterfly weighs half a gram, half the weight of a paperclip, yet they fly 40 miles a day and up to 700 miles. So this fourth generation, the super generation, I like to think of them as the elite athletes of the Monarch world. They're the ones, who fly all those hundreds of miles to California, hang upside down in trees all winter, and then migrate the next year.

So they, that fourth generation, they live seven to eight months, whereas the other generations during the summer will only live for like six weeks. I'll be darned. And yet it's the same butterfly. That's what's cool.

Speaker 1: Well, they must have to be a little fatter or something.

Speaker 2: Yeah, they, they really, in the fall of the year, and that's, you said one of the critical points is, is nectar plants, flowers that bloom in the fall. And we think about, you don't think about a lot of flowers blooming late in the fall. And around here, I've seen them nectarine into late October.

So we're really looking for plants that bloom late and they have a lot of nectar because then those super generations, they're, they're taking in nectar, which is pure sugar, converting that to fat. And that's what keeps them going through the winter.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So, okay. So a key point for their, for them to be successful is not only plants that they, the host plants that they like, but they got to have nectar sources to get them big and bulky. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And there are some people that think that's actually more critical than the milkweed because during the middle of the year, the summers, there's, there's quite a bit of milkweed enough. But when they're flying down, you think about it, you don't think about a lot of flowers that bloom into November, even October, November.

Speaker 1: It's, so when they're overwintering, is that, is that a kind of key spot? Do they like certain trees or something or are they?

Speaker 2: Generally what they look for, they're within the fog zone. So, to get away from freezing temperatures, they're literally within sight of the ocean. It used to be Monterey, Cypress, Monterey pine, those conifers, so a few other pines, but a lot of those have died out and people have planted Eucalyptus. So actually if you go to Santa Cruz or if you go to some of the other overwintering sites, you'll see Eucalyptus trees and that's where they, they overwinter. But the trouble with that is Eucalyptus are short-lived trees. They only live about a hundred years. And in a lot of the sites, the trees are dying and, and, and causing holes in the canopy because it's the, the canopy, which is what holds the heat in and keeps them from freezing. So they need a dense tree canopy.

Speaker 1: I see. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2: So they're literally up amongst the leaves in the, in the forest.

Speaker 1: Fascinating. Yeah. You're saying they do need plants to reproduce for their caterpillars to eat. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And that, and that's a Sclepius, the milkweed. Yeah. The only, that's the only genus of plant, that the Monarch butterfly can lay eggs on. Okay.

Speaker 1: And do they, is that a limitation? They really need a lot more of that or?

Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of a discussion right now. Obviously, there can always be more. And that's what we're trying to get people to plant milkweed in, in Monarch way stations, which we'll get to a little later. So, that is one of the limiting factors, but one of the other limiting factors is these overwintering sites, there was a publication from the Xerces Society recently that showed the 25 most popular sites, aerial photos. And if you look down, you'll see all these little sites surrounded by development. Oh no.

Okay. So, you know, and actually, in some development, they've literally gone in and developed, you know, tourist spots in the middle of what used to be overwintering sites. So that's one of the critical things, the aging, of the trees and then just development all along the California coast. Because of course, very high-value, high-value land.

Speaker 1: For sure. Okay. So when we're thinking about the reasons for the decline, and it seems like the decline since the mid-90s or early '90s.

Speaker 2: Late 90s, 97 was kind of the high water mark. And they've decreased by as much as 90% some estimates in the time since then. So they're, they're way down like the eastern population, but some think the western populations even more threatened.

Speaker 1: Really? Yeah. Yeah. And so when we're looking at the reasons for this decline and best guesses, and these are, I'm just a very complicated problem, the nesting sites, but also when they fly north, just having enough places for them to safely neck.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Monarchs are very migratory. And so they don't, they're actually called the wanderer in some places. So they don't stay in one home zone. They're constantly on the move. So what we try and do is create these little pockets of habitat, habitat being food, shelter, and water.

And we call those Monarch Way stations. So creating habitat. And then as they fly south in the winter, overwintering habitat is very critical because as we mentioned, the trees are dying. It's getting overdeveloped. So both those two things are considered to be the most critical. Excellent.

Speaker 1: Well, let's take a quick break, and then let's come back and talk about these way stations. Sure. So you've had a lot of success here in southern Oregon. Sure have.

All right. The listeners may not understand what the breaks are for, but I get all these great stories during the breaks and it helps shape the rest of the interview. And the one thing, we're going to talk about is way stations. But as we do, you got to, you got to tell me what you just told me during the break as we talk about the way stations.

Sure. So first of all, let's just start like, what are way stations? Where did this idea even get started? And, you know, where, who's responsible for building them? And, then I guess how they help monarchs. So way stations, ABCs of way stations. Okay.

Speaker 2: A monarch way station, that term was, was coined, by a professor, Chip Taylor at the University of Kansas. Really? And he started a group called Monarch Watch. Geez, 10 or 15 years ago. And so they came up with the concept. So a monarch way station, I call it a specialized pollinator garden. It's specialized because not only does a lot of other flowers, but it has milkweed. So that's why. So it's just a pollinator garden that has milkweed that the monarchs can egg on.

Speaker 1: I'm just astounded. Chip Taylor is a very famous honeybee person as well. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah. He, one of the future guests, Mark Winston, who's a big honeybee person was actually trained by him. Okay, darn. Yep.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So he personally kind of started it. Just, I guess it was just a habit of his. Yeah. And so monarch way stations, as I say, food, shelter, and water in the way station. So food, we need milkweeds for the caterpillars.

Yeah. Food, we need the adult butterfly needs nectar from milkweed flowers or excellent, excellent sources of nectar, but then Echinacea, whole different types of plants, shelter, the butterflies don't fly at night. They don't fly in inclement weather or windy weather. So you actually need woody trees, something around them, because they literally fly up in the tree and roost like a bird. And then they'll come down and yeah, and then they'll come down and nectar when it gets warm. They don't really get too active until 55 degrees. So on a cool, wet day, they just fly up and roost in a tree. And then when it gets warm, they'll come down and start feeding. So food, shelter, and then water, of course, everything needs water.

And they get a lot of that just from do, but in a garden, we, you know, we have a lot of times I'll just have a little drip system. I'll leave it there. So there is water too. So food, shelter, water, that's, that's a monarch way station.

Speaker 1: Okay. And so you were telling me at the break that one of the areas where monarchs, you know, heavy predation on the eggs. Right. So tell us a little bit about that in relation to the way station. So I guess if you have a little spot, then I guess you can look for eggs. Exactly.

Speaker 2: So I have raised beds in my backyard and I'll go out literally every morning. And I found that they lay their eggs very often lower in the canopy and, and on little, very small milkweeds, only a couple of inches tall. In fact, some of the newest research they've done where you can actually clip the milkweed back to get it to flesh, that new growth.

And the female monarch likes that fresh growth. So, I literally crawl around on my hands and knees and look for these. And the eggs are about a millimeter. They're very small. Your eyes must be remarkable.

Speaker 1: No, I actually carry a little hand lens with me too. Well, you get, you know, because there are other things that do look like them. But yeah, so you get good at finding them. So I go out every morning, clip the shoot with the egg, take it inside to a terrarium, and then I raise them all the way through into the caterpillar, into the chrysalis, and then into the adult butterfly.

Speaker 1: Okay. So you bring them in and then they, that, that way, as they develop, they're just not going to be eaten by birds under your control.

Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. As we talked about during the break, 95% of the eggs never make it to butterflies. They're eaten a lot of almost everything, each monarch eggs, ants, even things like ladybird beetles, some, you know, what you consider to be a beneficial insect, they'll eat the eggs too, earwigs, a lot of things. And then the caterpillar wasps are just really, really the hunting wasps, especially they'll just come and they'll, they'll wipe out caterpillars.

I've had people who've called me up and they're excited. I've got these caterpillars and they'll call me back two later, two days later, and say, well, they're all gone. What happened to them? And the wasp got them. So there's a lot of predation that people don't appreciate.

Speaker 1: Well, the other thing you pointed out, and we'll get back to weigh stations in a second, is really, it's like that as you're, if you're rearing them that way, that when they close, then it's a really good time to tag them so that you can do population studies. That's, that's right.

Speaker 2: So we're working with Dr. David James from Washington State University. You might be aware of him up in Rosser. Yeah. So he started tagging. Again, very little was known about the Western monarchs, almost all the tagging, well, the tagging of the Eastern monarchs started in the 40s, but up here that hasn't been as much. So he started a program. And so we've got a lot of good information.

He's got a paper coming out this spring, but we've, we've shown that the monarchs that we're tagging here do go to the coast of California. There was some thought that that was a little bit more than what we're doing. Maybe they would go to Mexico. We haven't found any of that. They've all been found in California.

Speaker 1: Okay, great. Okay, back to the way stations. So how big are these way stations?

Speaker 2: They can be everything. I tell people it could be two pots on your deck.

Speaker 1: So we got milkweed and then you need a nectar source. So you literally could do it with deck boxes. I have raised beds, mine are four feet by eight feet. I've got two raised beds and that's all the bigger they are. And the milkweed does really well in raised beds. I have drip irrigation and they found that the milkweed where it's getting irrigation and a little fertilizer where it's very healthy, that's even more attractive. So you get more egg laying on healthy plants.

Oh, that makes sense. Then they would be out on the dry hillside or something. So again, we're creating this ideal environment for them. Yeah, so they're like, hey, I probably can a couple of my young could.

Speaker 2: Yeah, my eggs have a lot better chance of surviving here. There's a lot of milkweed for them to eat. I even put out wasps traps to keep the wasps away so they've got a nice little environment.

Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah. I'm gonna nectar there. Yeah, exactly. I saw there was a website out of Kansas where they had dots for all the way stations. Yes. There are lots of them out there.

Speaker 2: Again, that's Monarch Watch. And I went and I looked at it. It says as of January 8th, 2018, 679 Monarch Way station habitats have been registered.

Speaker 1: What about down here in Southern Oregon?

Speaker 2: So we've got quite a few here too. I was just telling you right next door at Hanley Farm, which is the old historic farm here in Southern Oregon. We put a way station in three years ago. And last year we found 62 eggs and caterpillars in that. I literally, 'd come over once a week and look around. So yeah, it's very effective, very effective.

Speaker 1: I'm looking at the picture here. We're gonna pop over there afterward, but that is really remarkable.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, it's not a very big plot. You know, it's a, I don't know, what 25 feet by 25 feet, not that big.

Speaker 1: So who's putting these things in? How do these get, I guess this is just somebody start gets the news, they get some information and they just,

Speaker 2: Well, like I said, I've been given workshops to get people excited. A lot of people put them in their backyard as I did, but we've also been going out on public land and also along Bear Creek here, we have way stations that are right along the creek so that people can see them. And we've been working with schools, which is a lot of fun. So we've actually gone in, planted milkweed in the schools, the teachers go out, find the caterpillars, or I actually bring them to the schools. And then we've got, they have their little terrarium and they raise them and the kids get to watch them develop.

Speaker 1: What a great activity. Yeah, they love it. Kids just love it. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so apart from milkweed, well, I guess the first thing is like, where you obviously can take a workshop, that's the way to do it. But let's pretend we're sort of just, where do you get the milkweed?

Speaker 2: We grow it. Yeah, milkweed can be propagated by seeds. So I've been collecting seeds. We have two native milkweeds, narrow-leaf and showy milkweed here. And so I've collected seeds and I give those out at the workshops so we can grow them from seeds. But milkweeds also are propagated from rhizomes, which are an underground stem, kind of like an iris rhizome.

And so we propagate them both ways. And so if someone calls me up and wants seeds or sometimes rhizomes, I'll get them to them and they'll start them in their backyard.

Speaker 1: And we were talking about other plants that you can have in there. And one, you mentioned that ganache. Yep. What are some of the other flowers that adults like to nectar on?

Speaker 2: Again, so we have a plant palette, I call it, that's a list of plants that we want to put in our way station. And we want flowering plants all season long. So again, the monarchs might show up from California in April, so we want spring flowering plants like Oregon grape during the midsummer, something, and these are all native plants. Coyote mitt is a real, a real popular one to use. And then in the fall, a plant like rubber rabbit brush, which is a native plant, a shrub, is really excellent nectar plant. It's been written around. So we recommend nine different plants, three in the spring, three in midsummer, and three in the fall for nectar. That's in addition to the milkweed for them.

Speaker 1: That's great. And some of these, a ratto bush, for example, does not need a lot of moisture. So it's not like one of these plants down here when it gets all dry and crispy.

Speaker 2: And again, I think if we can keep them healthy and they're nice and succulent, I think that's actually attractive. You think of nectar being a liquid, if the plant's not moisture stressed, obviously there'd be more nectar on a plant that's not drought stressed. So we actually, even the rabbit brush, we have them on drip irrigation. Trying to keep them as healthy as we can, trying to pamper our monarchs.

Speaker 1: What about watering? What does a nice watering hole for a monarch look like?

Speaker 2: Again, what they call it, puddling. So it isn't like a pond or anything like that. They literally get the water from the soil. I've seen them come down in the morning on dew, like on the grass, and pick up their moisture.

I know down on Shasta Lake, when I was down there, you'd find people have probably seen this. You'll see a whole cluster of butterflies on one little spot, a wet spot. That's like a salt lick. So they're not only getting water, they're getting sodium and other minerals, which the males need for reproduction. So whenever you see a bunch of butterflies in one little spot, just think of it like a salt lick. So that's how they get their minerals. And do you have a salt lick in yours?

They actually get a lot of those. We've seen in our pots in the garden, the butterflies will literally come down again, because of the salts we use for fertilizer. So yeah. So just by having a good irrigated garden, they can get that.

Speaker 1: Okay, so let's say you're in Southern Oregon and you wanna get involved. Like you really wanna make a really nice way station and you wanna protect those eggs and bring them in and rear them. How do you learn all that?

Speaker 2: Well, like I said, we've been giving workshops. People could contact me directly. We've got several, I think five or six this spring, master gardeners groups I talked to. So if we go to a workshop or people could just contact me, we have some publications that people could use. One of the ones I brought you, that native pollinator plants for Southern Oregon. In the front, there's a little introductory section that talks about just the basics. And then we have the plants, these are all natives, but divided by spring flowering, summer flowering, and fall flowering plants, and the ones you'd wanna use.

Speaker 1: Well, let's talk a little bit more about that. I'm hoping this is one of your recommended books. Yes. Okay, well, we're gonna ask about recommended books in a second. And I know I'm on your mailing list now. So there's a really active group of you here in Southern Oregon and you get a notification if something big happens or...

Speaker 2: Yeah, we call ourselves the Southern Oregon Monarch Advocates, SOMA. There's another group in Central Oregon out of Bend, the Monarch Advocates of Central Oregon. And when I was Googling online this morning, there's actually a group in Eugene and Springfield. And again, those are just volunteer groups. People get together and talk about, have their little workshops and share information, share seeds, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: That's great. This is really... When I think about the show and pollination, it's really that. We really love hearing about this coming from Canada. I was so amazed when I got here to Oregon, how many volunteer initiatives like this are off the ground and running. It's really remarkable.

Speaker 2: And a lot of... Well, like myself being retired from the forest, there's a lot of retired folks that are really involved. They've got the time. A lot of them are professionals, so they really get into it. So a lot of my workshops are retired people, and it's been fun. I've met a lot of nice people.

Speaker 1: Yeah, pollinator people are nice people.

Speaker 2: They are nice people. Yeah, that's one of... Yeah, no, it is. That's really one of the benefits. You meet the nicest folks. It is true. And when just you were talking about bees and other things, the milkweed flowers are excellent nectar plants. Oh, they are.

Oh yeah. And I don't have the statistics right with me, but David James, who we talked about, did a study and they looked at flowering perennials, and Shoei Milkweed had attracted more beneficial insects than any other flower in the test. I think there were like 37 different species.

And so Shoei Milkweed and I see it in my garden, for every butterfly I see back there, I see 100 bees. Is that the orange one? No, it's actually kind of a rose color. The orange is not native.

Speaker 1: Oh, okay, that one really hops too. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, and they, yeah, the monarch doesn't care, but we stress native plants just because we don't introduce plants that might get away.

Speaker 1: Okay, so Shoei Milkweed, native that not all bees like.

Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Like I say, you can go out there on a warm day when I'm out there collecting caterpillars, and you've been around trees where it's almost like you can hear them humming. There are that many bees on it.

So they really do. But again, the Milkweed plant only blooms during the middle of the summer. It doesn't bloom late into the fall, not much past August. So we need other flowering plants, again, for that fall period, critical fall period, when they're trying to bulk up for that long flight south.

Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's take a break and we'll come back, and we've got a couple of questions. We ask all our guests, looking forward to hearing a monarch advocate's answers to these questions. Okay. Okay.

Okay, so here's the deal on all of these episodes. We have people who recommend a number of things. The first thing that we ask people for is a book that you recommend, and we have one book in my hands right here, Native Polyneuroplants for Southern Oregon.

Speaker 2: Right, and that's written by just myself and Suzy Savoy, and we get it printed locally and have it bound. So we ask about a $15 donation just to people, and people can get that on our website, which is at soma.org, Southern Oregon Monarch Advocates. You could just Google it that way.

Speaker 1: Really nice book. I'm just looking at it here. It's got a nice bloom time chart, a pie chart, that shows that it's gonna be in bloom. You know, oftentimes, one thing I always kind of, it says it's a pollinator plant, but you don't know who's attracted to it. You've got a nice listing of the pollinator plants here.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and one thing about pollinators, people talk about pollinator plants, but when you think about it, we actually want nectar plants. So on a flower, you have pollen, which of course the bees use as a food source, but the butterflies, the monarch butterflies, can't use pollen. They do pollinate because they carry it as they fly back and forth, but again, they need nectar flowers. So not all plants produce nectar, which is something I didn't realize.

Right. Like the poppy, the California poppy has no nectar. No nectar, exactly. And so there's a whole list of plants that don't produce nectar. So we're specifically looking for blooming during a certain time, but also the heavy nectar producers.

Speaker 1: Now you've got another book over there, which has been recommended by many, many guests. Tell us a little bit about...

Speaker 2: Well, this is from the Xerces Society. It's called Attracting Native Pollinators. And it's just an excellent source of information, protecting North American species and butterflies. So I think that's probably the one book that I think has all the information. It's got all kinds of information on different types of pollinators, different types of plants to have, and then a lot of just basic biology.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and I really like that book as well, as I've said many times when people recommend it. It's not typical for you can get that much information in a really concise way that covers everything. Like it really does cover, if you're a land manager, you wanna know what to do, it's there.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Xerces Society's out of Portland, so it has a Western tinge. A lot of the books you buy will be primarily for the Eastern area. Of course, that's where most of the people are anyway, but this one here has a little bit of a Western slant, which I like too.

Speaker 1: Great. The next question we ask our guests is, is there a tool that you really find indispensable? And it sounds like you're doing a lot of different things. Is there something that is your go-to tool for working with monarchs?

Speaker 2: Not a tool specifically. I think it's just the propagation, growing it like I grow milkweed every year for new monarch waystations. So I think understanding the plants and growing the native species, so a little bit of interest in plant propagation. Again, we talked about seeds and rhizomes. So I think just a good propagation text, some of your basic horticulture really helps.

Speaker 1: Is there a trick to propagating from seed? Is it difficult to do?

Speaker 2: Like a lot of native plants, the seeds don't germinate immediately, they have to be stratified. So they have to go through like an overwintering period, cold, moist temperatures. So like right now in my refrigerator at home, I've taken the milkweed seeds I collected last fall, I hydrate them and clean them, let the water clean them. And then I put them in paper towels, put them in a Ziploc bag, and then put them in the refrigerator. So they get exposed to this cold, moist period for six to eight weeks, and then they germinate a lot faster and more uniformly. And so they don't mold or anything in there, they're good.

Nope. Well, one reason I put them in like a sprout jar that has the mesh on the top. So I put my seeds in there and I let the water just run over it, run over it, run over it. Because yeah, there are bacteria and molds on them and that cleans them. And then sometimes I actually have to rinse them again and put them on a new paper towel. But yeah, after about six to eight weeks, they've been through that overwintering period and they're ready to germinate. So that's one of the tricks.

Speaker 1: Okay, great. The last question we have for you is an obvious one, do you have a favorite pollinator species?

Speaker 2: Obviously the monarch butterfly, but I tell you what, it's been fun since I started working with monarchs, but just a lot of, you know, like little buckeye flowers or the Ackman blue butterfly. So it's been, I've been learning butterflies that I didn't know anything about just, you know, in my waystations as I've been observing them. So all the butterflies I think are my favorite.

Speaker 1: Okay, I guess just to conclude this, like why monarchs? Like why did you ever, where did this notion come into your head?

Speaker 2: Well, as I was telling you before we started, I was, I brought up around Wichita in Southern Kansas when I was a Boy Scout. I collected monarchs as part of my insect collection. And they were so common back there. I remember thinking, geez, I wish I could find, you know, something else for my collection. Then coming out here, I saw very few and then I found out the population had crashed.

So that's what kind of got me going specifically on monarchs. And I've just got, again, I'm a forester by training. So I've learned all this. There's great information online and again, working with other organizations that are doing the same thing, Soma. Yeah, it's been fun.

Speaker 1: Well, Tom, thanks for taking the time. It's a real pleasure and keep up the good work. You betcha. Thanks so much for listening. Show notes with information discussed in each episode can be found at pollinationpodcast.oregonstate.edu. We'd also love to hear from you and there are several ways to connect. For one, you can visit our website to post an episode-specific comment, suggest a future guest or topic, or ask a question that could be featured in a future episode. You can also email us at [email protected]. Finally, you can tweet questions or comments or join our Facebook or Instagram communities. Just look us up at OSU Pollinator Health. If you like the show, consider letting iTunes know by leaving us a review or rating.

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