Riders on RAGBRAI this week will be helping with an initiative to improve monarch butterflies’ breeding habitat. The group Monarchs in Eastern Iowa and the team Milkweed Matters held multiple events this spring to have volunteers put together milkweed seedballs, which are then tossed by RAGBRAI cyclists as they pedal across Iowa. According to Iowa State University research, good monarch breeding habitat includes areas with milkweed for larvae and flowering plants to serve as energy sources for adults.

This year, nearly 51,000 milkweed seedballs will be thrown along roadsides during RAGBRAI. Each day of the event, cyclists will pick up the seedballs in the second town of the day, so as riders come into Washington they’ll have picked them up in Hedrick and on Saturday they’ll be able to stop by the booth in Columbus Junction to help spread the seeds needed for monarch habitat across the KCII-listening area.