![]() The southern plains region, epicenter of the Dust Bowl, is also the only place on Earth the lesser prairie-chicken inhabits. It soon became apparent that, in addition to its intended goal of stabilizing soils, CRP also improved habitat for grassland-dependent wildlife. Photo: Jeremy Roberts, Conservation Media. Lesser prairie-chicken nest in CRP grassland, Kansas. Through CRP, NRCS and FSA joined forces with local farming families and restored large areas of formerly cultivated lands back to prairie grassland. Instead, a farmer could receive an annual rent to plant marginal croplands back to grass and maintain them as grassland for 10-15 years. This restoration practice took a big leap forward in 1985, which the USDA launched the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) through the Farm Service Agency (FSA).ĬRP offered farmers an alternative to planting fragile soils to crops. The soil maps also identified areas where the soil was particularly vulnerable to erosion and would benefit from restoration back to grasslands. These soil survey maps allowed NRCS field staff to tailor conservation practices to meet the particular soil conditions of each farm. NRCS also dispatched a team of scientists to map the region’s diverse soils. ![]() Congress then created the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) in 1935 (later renamed the Natural Resources Conservation Service), to work one-on-one with landowners and help them adopt sustainable agricultural practices that prevent further soil erosion. This epic calamity awakened Americans to the importance of preventing soil erosion and prompted the formation of the Soil Erosion Service in 1933. Thick dust hung in the air and settled in deep, rolling drifts that suffocated grasslands, livestock, and wildlife. When prolonged drought struck, millions of acres of bone-dry soils lay exposed to the winds that regularly scour this region.ĭust Bowl winds carried off an estimated 480 tons of topsoil per acre in the southern Great Plains. ![]() The native prairie plant community is well adapted to withstand these conditions, but the tilled soil was not. Click map for enlarged view.ĭuring the Dust Bowl decade of the 1930s, homesteaders in the southern plains encountered the formidable limitations of farming in a region of low rainfall, high winds, and frequent droughts. ![]() Map of region hardest hit by during the Dust Bowl, overlaid with the boundaries of current and historic lesser prairie-chicken range. This dynamic duo of fire and grazing by large herbivores shaped a robust prairie community.Įquipped with farming backgrounds and Homestead Act requirements to ‘prove up’ on their 160-acre parcels, most settlers plowed the prairie’s grasslands under and planted crops, even in the southern Great Plains-the hottest, driest region of the Plains. Fires regularly swept through, and prairie grasses and forbs responded with an explosion of new growth, which drew hungry herds of bison, pronghorn, and elk. In 1908, they bought land and built the home where Abell and his family now live.īack in the late 1800s, native prairie grasslands still stretched unbroken across much of the southern Great Plains. “They didn’t do a whole lot of farming-they had mostly grass and cows.”Ībell’s great grandparents came to western Kansas in the 1880s. “It was a bad time for everybody, but made it through,” Abell said. “And my grandparents of course lived through it, back in the ’30s.” “I’m too young to have been through the Dust Bowl, but both my parents went through it,” Dwight Abell said, as he gazed out over the broad sweep of grasslands on his western Kansas ranch. Science – Informing effective and efficient on-the-ground solutions.įarmer and sons in a dust storm, April, 1936.The Wildlife – Supporting wildlife habitats from coast to coast.Northern Bobwhite, Grasslands, & Savannas.Landscapes – Taking a biome-level approach to conservation.About Us – The premier approach for conserving America’s working lands.
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