By Penelope Hillemann
Modern agriculture’s large monoculture fields grow a lot of corn and soybeans, planted annually. The outputs from row crops can be measured both in dollars paid in the market and also in non-market costs, known as externalities. Soil, nutrients, groundwater, pollinators, wildlife diversity, and habitat (among other things) can be lost when crop yields are maximized.
Now it appears that prairie strips have an extraordinary power to change this pattern.
A prairie strip is much what it sounds like: a strip of diverse herbaceous vegetation running through a farm’s rowcrops. In the American Midwest, chances are the soil that now supports crops was once covered in prairie before cultivation. Prairie plants are a mixture of native grasses, wildflowers, and other stiff-stemmed plants. They have deep roots that draw water and nutrients from far below the surface. They are perennials, returning to grow each spring.
“Research shows that areas of native prairie planted in the right places in a farm field can provide benefits that far outweigh losses from converting a small portion of a crop field to prairie,” said Lisa Schulte Moore of Iowa State University. “For example, when we work with farmers to site prairie strips on areas that were not profitable to farm, we can lower their financial costs while creating a wide variety of benefits.”
Schulte Moore is a team member with STRIPS: Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips. STRIPS showed that converting just 10% of a row-cropped field to prairie strips:
- reduces soil loss by 95%,
- reduces overland water flow by 37%, and
- reduces the loss of two key nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) from the soil by nearly 70% and 77%, respectively.
It also leads to greater abundance and diversity of beneficial insects, pollinators such as bees and monarch butterflies, and birds. Going from zero to 10% prairie provided far more than a 10% increase in the measured benefits.
Prairie strips are composed of native perennial plants and located across hill slopes. The stiff stems and abundant, fibrous roots of the native plants slow down water and allow it to soak into the soil, causing less soil erosion. The native plants also provide habitat for wildlife.
“Some of these benefits can impact our pocketbooks but are not accounted for by typical financial markets,” said Schulte Moore. These include ecological benefits such as flood control, cleaner water, and carbon from the atmosphere stored.
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