Do you have native milkweed plants on your property? If so, early fall is a great time to collect seed. Seeds are mature and ready for collection once they are darker brown. Milkweed pods will turn from green to brown, start to open up and reveal the brown seeds inside. Pods will continue to open up and the seed will fly out and disperse. However, it's ideal to collect seed before the pods fully open up and the seed fluff/silk develops. It is best to remove the fluff from the seed for storage. To separate the seed from the fluff, remove the entire stalk of seeds and fluff/silk from the seed pod, hold the end of the fluff/silk and gently push and pull the seeds off the fluff/silk. Watch this short video to see butterfly milkweed seed cleaning. Once the seed is "cleaned" (the fluff is removed), lay it out to dry completely, label the seed with the plant species name (common or butterfly milkweed), and write the date and location the seed was collected. Store dry seed in paper or mesh plastic bags.

ACD collaborates with Anoka County Parks and cities within Anoka County to enhance local native habitats. If you have native milkweed seed you would like to donate, ACD staff will happily take it and spread seed at appropriate locations. Contact Carrie Taylor, Restoration Ecologist, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. There will be a waterproof box outside the ACD office for seed drop off. Be sure to label the milkweed species. ACD office address: 1318 McKay Dr NE Suite 300, Ham Lake, MN 55304. 

Meet The Milkweeds 

Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on the leaves of milkweed. Let's help feed these hungry caterpillars!

by Fred Baker, Emeritus Professor and Forest Pathologist, Utah State University

Eastern spruce dwarf mistletoe is a disease that kills trees quickly, with most trees dying within 20 years. In Minnesota, this mistletoe typically affects black spruce, an important species to the state's forest products industry and landscape.

The dwarf mistletoe disrupts a tree's physiology in incredible ways. The most common sign is the formation of a witches' broom. In this process, the disease diverts the tree's nutrients to the broom and "starves" the rest of the tree. Ultimately, the tree will die because it's unable to process the lipids it needs to survive.

Witches brooms in a dwarf mistletoe-infested black spruce stand. Photo: Brian Anderson.

Dwarf mistletoe is a parasite. It flowers in March and is a safe bet to be the first "plant" to flower in the spring. Seed dispersal happens in late August and early September. When seeds disperse, dwarf mistletoes are unique because they can shoot their seeds up to 55 feet from a diseased tree! These seeds are covered with a sticky substance that attaches to a nearby spruce needle. During summer rainfall, this sticky substance rehydrates, and the seeds slide closer to the twig, where it germinates the following spring.

Although dwarf mistletoe can shoot seeds up to 55 feet, most only go a few feet. This results in a spread rate of about 2.4 feet per year through a forest stand. Research indicates that spread from large trees and small trees is about the same. Slightly more than half the spruce stands in Minnesota are thought to be infected with dwarf mistletoe.

Mistletoes are obligate parasites. This means that if you kill the tree, the parasite dies too. If timber harvesting is done in black spruce, removing all spruce trees during a harvest could minimize the risk of mistletoe infecting a future stand.