By Kristin Peterson
Nebraska has
some of the largest losses of native prairies in the United States and the
state is not alone in seeing its native prairie vanish from the landscape.
According to
a recent study by Christopher Wright and Michael
Wimberly, the prairie loss in the nation’s corn belt is "comparable to deforestation rates in Brazil,
Malaysia, and Indonesia." This means prairies now rival rainforests in
regards to destruction of habitat.
CenUSA
Bioenergy and many others are looking for ways to tackle this daunting problem.
Although not
strictly native, a “bioenergy prairie” can reintroduce some native perennial
energy grasses into the landscape that can help mediate ecosystem damage.
Although this approach is not a perfect solution, sometimes with large issues
it helps to not let a search for perfection impede the ability for improvement.
Nebraska is
exploring how practices that integrate prairie grasses into the modern
agricultural landscape along with improvements in farm management can reduce
farmland pollutants from entering the water and make for more viable habitats
for some animals and insects.
“Converting some of these agricultural lands
to switchgrass or low diversity mixtures of switchgrass, big bluestem and maybe
even some forbs, could really have a big wildlife benefit depending on the
amount of acres that are put on the ground,” said Eric Zach, Agriculture
Program Manager for the Nebraska Park and Game Commission. Zach is a member of the CenUSA Advisory Board and
chair of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Biofuels Working group.
Zach has studied the wildlife habitat implications from CenUSA’s Bioenergy
grass field trials and finds them to hold some potential for an improved climate
for wildlife.
“The benefits
of bioenergy crops are going to be dependent on the type of habitat that they
replace. If these grasses are going to be put in place of monocultures of corn
then more than likely they are going to be beneficial to wildlife,” said Dr.
Susan Rupp, a wildlife biologist working with the National Wildlife
Federation. Dr. Rupp, author of the
National Wildlife Federation’s 2013 Best
Management Guidelines to Achieve Sustainability of Wildlife Resources acknowledges
that these benefits do not occur if energy grasses are used to replace a more
diversified crop or natural prairie land.
CenUSA is
working on projects that integrate switchgrass and other perennial prairie
grasses into farm fields. Additionally, CenUSA is working with the STRIPS (Science-based
Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairies) project led by Iowa State
University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture to evaluate how
converting as little as 10% of row crop into buffer strips of perennial grass
mixtures can have a positive environmental impact.
Although with
a constant and growing demand for American agriculture to supply food, fuel and
heat the prairies will never return to their former state, it is possible to
integrate native perennials into the Midwestern landscape and create a more
sustainable regional future.
Additional
Resources:
Perennial
Herbaceous Biomass Production and Harvest in the Prairie Pothole Region of the
Northern Great Plains: Best Management Guidelines to Achieve Sustainability of Wildlife
Resources
CenUSA Bioenergy Webinar featuring
Susan Rupp: Perennial Herbaceous Biomass Production and Harvest: Best
Management Guidelines to Achieve
