Plans to expand Western Michigan University’s Business, Technology, and Research Park at Colony Farm Orchard have been met with controversy. The university got the property with the caveat that it could not be developed. But in 2010, the state got rid of that restriction.
Environmentalists are worried about plants and wildlife on the site as well as in nearby Asylum Lake Preserve. The discovery of a rare species of orchid on the site has given environmentalists hope that Western might change its plans.
Western’s landscape services found the orchid back in September, just a couple hundred feet from U-S 131. It’s called Spiranthes ovalis - or Lesser Ladies Tresses. It’s a threatened species in Michigan, which means - if efforts aren’t taken to save it - the orchid will likely become endangered.
Western Biological Sciences Professor Todd Barkman says until last year, only seven Lesser Ladies Tresses had ever been found in the entire state - but he says 2015 was an interesting year for the orchids.
“There was one sighting near the Kal-Haven Trail here in Kalamazoo County and then a second one was reported here at the Colony Farm Orchard at WMU. And then another Spiranthes finding…orchid was found over in the east side of town in a preserve, Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy preserve.”
Barkman sent samples of the three plants to a lab for DNA testing. After a lot of waiting, he finally got back the results in December. Two of them were confirmed as Lesser Ladies Tresses. The one at the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy preserve was a different species never seen in Kalamazoo County, called Spiranthes romanzoffiana.
Fortunately for architects of the WMU research park expansion, the orchid at Colony Farm is on the western edge of the property and not in the middle of their proposed plans. Bob Miller is associate vice president of community relations at Western. He says the architects have come up with a design that accommodates the orchid.
“It will remain in the open space or the green space. There will be development around it but not encroaching upon it. So our plan is to in essence ‘work around’ - if you will - the orchid.”
Miller says they thought about transplanting it to Asylum Lake Preserve. But Barkman said no - we don’t know enough about the orchid to move it. Just about every place the orchid has been found in Kalamazoo County is unlike the other.
“It’s safe to conclude that we don’t know much about what this orchid likes and what it requires to become established at any given location,” he says.
Barkman says orchids are also just sensitive in general.
“Orchids are difficult because they frequently have relationships with what are called Mycorrhizal fungi - or a type of mushroom - that associates with its roots and lives in mutualism with it. So it’s not so easy to take away an orchid from a site and hope that it will establish those same relationships in a new site.” But leaving the orchid at Colony Farm is a risk too. Construction often comes with dust and runoff. Miller says Western is going to do everything it can to make sure the orchid survives. “But who knows? No one has a crystal ball and we’re going to do our best.”
WMU senior biology student Shaana Way serves on the advisory committee for the research park project, along with Barkman. She’s also in the Western beekeeping club that keeps its hives on the Colony Farm property.
Way says the fact that a rare plant like Lesser Ladies Tresses grows in Colony Farm shows that the old orchard is more than just a green space. She says the university should do a site survey before starting any development there.
“Who knows - we might find more rare species and that would just increase the value of that property,” she says.
Miller says the design team for the WMU research park expansion project will do a tree inventory at Colony Farm, but right now there are no plans to study other plants at the site.
Architects for the expansion are gathering public input on the project. Western is expecting a matching grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration once the design plan is complete. Miller says they’re hoping to break ground this fall.
