Prairie
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Popular Iowa livestock program gets green light for 3 more years
Posted onSouthwest Iowa – March 24, 2026 – A newly announced extension of Iowa’s Cattle and Conservation Working Lands Project through 2028 signals growing momentum behind a simple idea: healthier soil leads to cleaner water—and grazing can help deliver both. Secretary Mike Naig announced the extension this month (March 2, 2026). The project is active in…
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Urgent: Jan 15 Deadline for NRCS Conservation Funding
Posted onFarmers interested in USDA-NRCS conservation funding for the 2026 planting season need to get their paperwork in order ASAP to meet the upcoming deadline. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has officially announced a national batching deadline of January 15, 2026, for the first round of funding for several key programs. While the NRCS…
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Farmer Feature: Emery Davis
Posted onHow one Eastern Iowa farmer makes conservation rewarding By: Micaela Cashman Emery Davis farms in Crawfordsville, Iowa, near the Iowa State Research Farm. His small family farm in the Southern Iowa Drift Plain was shaped by glaciers over 500,000 years ago and has been deeply eroded by streams, rolling hills, and valleys. Sloped land and…
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From prairie meadows to renewable fuel: how one man’s vision could reshape the Midwest
Posted onBy Dan Looker Rudi Roeslein was born in Salzburg, Austria, not far from mountain meadows where the movie, The Sound of Music, was filmed. His family emigrated to St Louis when he was a boy and today Roeslein has a vision of spreading different flowering fields–30 million acres of native tallgrass prairies–in his adopted country,…
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Prairie Strips – A beautiful tool for soil preservation
Posted onBy Dan Looker ANKENY, Iowa (IAWA) Diamonds are valued and appreciated for their beauty because they’re rare. So it is with a nearly vanished American landscape – the tallgrass prairie. Only 4% of its original 170 million acres remains in the U.S. In Iowa, it covers less than 0.1% of the land. Yet, anyone who…
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USDA ramps up support for prairie strips
Posted onBy Dan Looker ANKENY, Iowa (IAWA) – The USDA offers a cornucopia of conservation programs through its Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) – but using them for planting prairie strips has been complicated and sometimes difficult for farmers. The FSA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) started in the 1980s to take whole…
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The STRIPS Project – A brief history
Posted onBy Dan Looker ANKENY, Iowa (IAWA) – In 2007, a group of Iowa State University researchers started testing the concept of mixing the advantages of tallgrass prairie with row crops, an effort they dubbed “Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips,” or STRIPS. One advantage prairie plants have is their roots, which reach up to…
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Prairie fuel – A new market for prairie hay
Posted onBy Dan Looker ANKENY, Iowa (IAWA) – Iowa farmers who plant prairie strips may soon have a new source of revenue for harvesting them. This spring, St. Louis-based Roeslein Alternative Energy finalized an $80-million USDA contract under the department’s Climate Smart Commodities program, which will allow the company to compensate farmers who harvest prairie hay. That…
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From ditches to riches, restored prairie builds healthy Iowa soil
Posted onBy Adam Sodders ST. ANTHONY, Iowa (IAWA) – In Marshall County, a 105-acre patch of restored prairie gives a glimpse into Iowa’s past and serves as an example of the impact that long-term conservation work can have. That same patch is where Carl Kurtz has called home all of his 77 years, more than half…