The history of the UC Davis/Caltrans grant project shown on this website, starts Feb. 11, 2003, in Yolo County at the I-505, Road 14 exit test plot site in the Sacramento Valley, California:


(Just across the Interstate, there's a second native plant test plot, planted by the Yolo County RCD, see below).

A couple of acres drill-seeded with several species of native grasses, seedlings are 2 inches tall, Feb. 11, 2003.

Above: Dunnigan Hills Caltrans test plot, looking south, February 11, 2003.

Above: The Yolo County RCD test plot, Dunnigan Hills, across I-505 from the Caltrans plot, March, 2003.
Some of the hummocks in background are the exotic perennial grasses. Checking the area in September 2004, there's a stand of about 50% cover of the native perennial grass Nassella (Purple Needlegrass).

Dunnigan Hills UC Davis/Caltrans site, June 2003. This first-year's planting was declared a failure and the site was sprayed in May and a second attempt planned for autumn 2003 ...What is all that brown stuff?

Lodged polyploid ryegrass, six inches deep!
This is one of the aggressive pasture-types developed in Oregon, now showing up here in California as weeds.

Above: October, 2003, with the Dunnigan Hills site burned and ready to reseed to try again.

SECOND TRY: January 18, 2004: Photos below show the Dunnigan Hills test plot second attempt underway.

January 2004, part of the site had been recently mulched with a light covering of native needlegrass straw (Nassella or Stipa). The exotic grasses have been managed over the whole two acres, but what is left is a lot of bare soil that's eroding, plus seedlings of broadleaf weeds: mostly filaree, mustard, dock, milk thistle, and vetch. Yellow star thistle seedling not observed yet, but they don't usually show until later in spring.

Oh, no!...May 2004, the upper portion not resown, is solid yellow star thistle!

However, in May, 2004, the Dunnigan Hills site did have about 1,000 plants of various native grasses.

AUGUST, 20, 2004. The upper portions of the Dunnigan site formerly covered with yellow starthistle was mowed earlier in the summer. Wild oats encroaching, plus some very robust "Blando" brome into the former native grass test plot area.

Former upper test plot area.

Test plot area, arrow is where the line of wooden stakes is located.

UPDATE: July 12, 2006 - Another replanting attempt, unfortunately failing:

Between September 2005 and spring 2006, the test plot was plowed and resown by drill-seeding with Elymus glaucus and some four-inch tall Purple Needlegrass, that is barely surviving as an understory beneath the weeds. This test plot has been treated like an annual flower-bed, resown every year and hoping for the best. No ecological restoration technologies have been used or successful techniques invented on-site, that would guarantee plant survival and establishment.

Spring 2006, UC Davis took over the Yolo County RCD test plot area, and it was plowed and replanted, by drill seeding on 8 inch-centers, mostly Purple Needlegrass and some Elymus glaucus, which has formed a nearly solid stand by July 2006. Each plant is growing on 4-8" centers within the drill-row. However, in the distance you can see scattered wild lettuce and mustard plants, and even at these very low amounts, could eventually start the domino-like collapse of this nice planting.

August, 2007, planting is still intact.

Notice the wide spaces, without other species of native plants between the native bunchgrass plants. "Vacancies" in the planting can allowing weeds to colonize. Islands of weeds, once they get established, like patches of mustard, can unravel the planting from within. Or star thiostle can move into the bare spaces, like a wave, from the edge.

August, 2008, Oh, no, what's all that spiny stuff invading the native grassland? Mostly yellow star thistle coming in from the edges! The green in the center, is the wild lettuce starting the destruction of the planting from within. About 10% of the planting is already solidly infested, and will probably last another ten years under drought conditions, or 2-4 years with normal rainfall.

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I-80 TEST PLOTS:
A second Caltrans native grass test plot is along I-80 near Dixon, photographed March, 2003., both sides of the Interstate in the shoulder. Photos show native grasses, drill-seeded and a few inches tall.

The I-80 test plots are half-way between Midway Road exit and the Dixon West "A" Street exit.
If you are traveling eastbound from Vacaville, the plot is 1.3 miles past the Midway Road exit, after where the high power line crosses, and before you get to a line of trees and the Phone Call box 80-342.

Traveling Westbound from Sacramento, past the Dixon exit, the test plot starts at the Vacaville/Fairfaield/San Francisco mileage sign and Call box 80-343 (PM 34.00) and goes toward where the high power lines cross the Interstate.

---See other State DOTs research with roadside natives: http://www.ecoseeds.com/topdot.html

---See other State DOT web pages on native plants: http://www.ecoseeds.com/roadside.web.html

---See what questions need answers before native plants for roadsides can begin: http://www.ecoseeds.com/questions.html

---See what type of roadside problems that native plants may be a solution (erosion, exotics): http://www.ecoseeds.com/highways.html

---See what research and technologies are necessary for successes with roadside native plants: http://www.ecoseeds.com/standards.html

---See a checklist of ten items to get faster successes: http://www.ecoseeds.com/talk.html

Other Caltrans Roadside Vegetation Programs:
Adopt-A-Highway "WILDFLOWER PLANTING"

The "Wildflower Planting" program's desired result, perhaps that Caltrans hoped for when the program was initiated, was that the adoptees might develop at no cost to Caltrans successful "wildflower" roadside vegetation with low maintenance costs, better than the flammable annual exotic grasses and exotic weeds normally along California's roadsides.

Unfortunately, none of the California native "Wildflower Plantings" over the last decade, seem to be successful, and driving up and down the State you will see numerous "Wildflower" signs, with no fields of wildflowers at the various sites. The program has resulted in providing cheap advertising for companies, without the companies having to pay the minimum of $225,000 per acre that a successful wildflower planting in California would cost, as the UC Davis project has established.

Caltrans' "Wildflower Planting" program should be discontinued state-wide, until the costs of successfully establishing a wildflower planting drops into a price per acre that a civic group or commercial business can actually afford.