Farmland donation will triple size of reconstructed prairie in Benton County

Upward of 50 people congregated on a property in Dysart — in northwest Benton County about 30 miles south of Waterloo — on Friday afternoon. Some were students. Some were researchers. Some were university staffers.

One was Cathy Irvine — the 77-year-old woman being honored for donating hundreds of acres of her farmland in the name of prairie reconstruction and in memory of her late husband, David.

Prairies once blanketed Iowa. Now, largely due to the spread of agriculture, less than 0.1 percent of the original habitat remains, scattered across the state in remnants.

Researchers and organizations are trying to reintroduce prairies to Iowa by reconstructing them. That’s how Irvine Prairie came to be: Cathy Irvine originally donated 77 acres of farmland to be transformed into prairie in 2018. She also established the Irvine Fund to support the prairie reconstruction.

Her latest land donation — gifted in January and honored Friday at the dedication — more than triples the size of Irvine Prairie, expanding it to 292 acres. It’s now one of the largest tracts of restored prairie in Eastern Iowa, said Laura Jackson, professor and director of the University of Northern Iowa’s Tallgrass Prairie Center.

The center is developing and managing the project. Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation attached a permanent easement to the property so the land would be conserved in perpetuity. The site gives opportunities for both research and conservation — and it stands as a testament to a marriage strong enough to make a permanent, natural mark on Eastern Iowa.

“Irvine Prairie will no longer produce corn and soybeans,” Jackson said at the dedication on Friday. “It's a place that produces clean water, abundant wildlife, healthy soil and renewal of the human spirit.”

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Love of land and husband

Irvine Prairie sprouts from land that was once a 460-acre family farm. David Irvine’s grandfather bought most of the property in the 1930s and 1940s, Cathy said. After World War II, David’s parents tended to chicken, hogs and cattle on the land. As they aged, they began growing corn and soybeans.

Upon their retirement, Cathy and David took over the farm and started living on the land in 1971. David grew the row crops; Cathy was a teacher.

Poor health forced David’s retirement from farming. He died in 2016.

“When my husband died, there was a gap in my life. I didn't know what to do,” Cathy said. “I thought returning some land to the prairie would be a wonderful tribute to his love of the land.”

The pair always loved Iowa, and David especially loved Iowa’s history. Together, they read Where the Sky Began by John Madson — the father of the modern prairie restoration movement — and fell in love with the concept of prairies. They traveled to Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge and “gloried at how beautiful” the 4,000 acres of tallgrass prairie were, Cathy said.

Turning some of his family’s farmland into prairie is a continuation of David’s love for the habitat — and their bond as husband and wife.

“He was a typical farmer. He probably initially would have thought, ‘What?! Take good land out of production in Iowa?’” Cathy said with a chuckle. “I think he would like what it is now.”

Transforming farmland into prairie

Prairie reconstruction started with an assessment of the land, which includes surveying its soils, its topography and if there’s any remnant prairie already on it. In the case of Cathy and David’s land, there were no prairie seeds left in the soil because it had been farmed for so many years.

Then, the Tallgrass Prairie Center team designed a seed mix for the soil moisture classes present on each parcel. The researchers drew from plant species found in remnant prairies elsewhere, so the reconstructed habitat can have a historically accurate species composition.

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The chosen seeds were then planted using a variety of methods. Sometimes, they were drilled into the ground using a no-till native seed drill. Other times, they were scattered into soybean stubble. Some are grown elsewhere and transplanted as seedlings. Some are planted in spring; some are planted in fall or winter.

Since 2018, the team has been planting plot by plot — slowly but surely filling the original 77-acre parcel of donated land over time. Ninety-seven acres have been seeded so far.

Around 128 plant species have been planted or plugged into the burgeoning prairie. In the 2022 growing season, the team counted 78 species actively growing. That may seem like a lot, Jackson said, but remnant prairies can sport more than 350 plant species.

Team members visit the prairie at least once a month to monitor and maintain the habitat. The growth is mowed in its first year to prevent weeds from shading out prairie plants. Prescribed burns — which are vital to successful prairies — are conducted. All the while, researchers survey areas to see what seedlings and weeds are coming up.

Cathy contributes to the work, too, by mowing the walking paths and fire breaks that trace through the prairie. She also helps water the growing plants, particularly during the currently dry conditions.

“She's not just the visionary. She's also doing on-the-ground work as part of the team,” Jackson said about Cathy. “It really is a collaboration.”

Benefits of prairie

The historical prairies that once covered Iowa left its soil rich and fertile. Prairie plants have a deep network of roots that hold soil in place and slow and filter runoff. The roots also inject sugars into the soil, which microbes eat. Those microbes create organic matter that makes the soil more absorbent.

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Irvine Prairie will now do the same: It will pump carbon back into the ground that has been used as farmland for nearly the last century. It won’t require fertilizer or pesticides like crops do, and it will provide habitat for wildlife. But recovery takes time.

“It will never get back to what the remnant prairies were, at least not in our lifetimes or the next or the next,” Jackson said.

The project is also an opportunity for the Tallgrass Prairie Institute to experiment with different habitat reconstruction techniques and learn as it goes.

For example, researchers are testing how spraying the herbicide Roundup impacts prairie growth. Preliminary results showed that sites sprayed twice supported many more prairie plants than those sprayed once or not at all, thanks to less competition with other plants. The team is also comparing planting in the fall and spring.

Cathy still lives on David’s family farm — now a “little house on the prairie,” she joked. She is looking forward to gazing out her windows next year and being surrounded by the blossoming prairies.

“We hope that one little beacon of light might encourage others,” Cathy said. “Maybe it's just nudging people a little bit, even if it's only changing their attitude — and certainly their appreciation.”

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Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com