Peter Schaeffer, Nongame and Roadsides Wildlife Technician, with the MN DNR who has experience with prairie seed collection and restorations suggests that harvesting seed from a native prairie is a long-term process. He said that it may take many years to actually collect the true diversity of species within a specific native prairie site. Thus attempting to replicate a native prairie by collecting seed over one growing season may not be feasible because several years are needed to collect the diverse seed species and mixture that reflects the dynamics of the prairie community. The harvest of seed is most efficient when bags or other containers are attached to the body allowing both hands to be free for seed collection. The collection of seed by hand results in many more species than harvesting with machines or other methods.
Hand harvesting is essential when attempting to separately collect individual species.
The technique used for collecting seed by hand varies from person to person and from species to species. Collecting seed by hand is a useful technique in areas where the plants are widely distributed and where the terrain or environmental conditions do not allow for machines to be utilized. Those species that are rare, uncommon, seed early or late in the season, or occur in isolated and small patches are usually best harvested by hand. There are, however, some disadvantages to using hand harvesting techniques versus other methods. Collecting seed by hand is quite time and labor intensive.