The Promise of Prairie Strips
Pressured by downstream property owners and their own desire to conserve their soil and keep their water drinkable, many farmers are looking for conservation programs that are both affordable and effective. One such potential solution, under development for about eight...
The Promise of Prairie Strips
Pressured by downstream property owners and their own desire to conserve their soil and keep their water drinkable, many farmers are looking for conservation programs that are both affordable and effective. One such potential solution, under development for about eight...Pressured by downstream property owners and their own desire to conserve their soil and keep their water drinkable, many farmers are looking for conservation programs that are both affordable and effective.
One such potential solution, under development for about eight years now, is called STRIPS—an acronym for Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips. The program, researched at Iowa State University, involves sowing native prairie plants on carefully selected parcels of farmland. These “strips” of grasses, forbs (non-grass flowering plants) and other plants have been proven to slow, even stop, runoff of soil, as well as phosphorus and nitrogen.
Tim Youngquist, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer and farmer liaison on the STRIPS team, says, “Not a single farmer wants to see the soil wash away, or to see nitrogen and phosphorus in the rivers. No one wants that.”
Says Iowa State University Associate Professor Dr. Lisa Schulte Moore, one of the STRIPS team leaders, “The big picture is that we are trying to get the most conservation bang for the buck on private lands, recognizing right now that corn and soybeans pay the bills for farmers in the Corn Belt. We are trying to figure out, how do we meet our water quality goals, and how do we maintain our soil?”
Data from STRIPS plots first established in 2007 has provided a sort of ground floor for the initial phase of the study. Results were unprecedented and definitive. Between 2007 and 2012, strategically placed prairie strips covering 10% of a field were able to reduce soil sediment runoff by 95%, phosphorus by 90% and total nitrogen by 84%, when runoff was compared to that from a field of no-till row crops with no remediation.
