The Benefits of Keeping Trees, Shrubs and Native Grasses on Your Farm

By Vanya North

Take a drive down highway 29 in Northwest Missouri, and you’ll see plenty of sights commonly seen right here in Iowa. Farmsteads with rolling hills of corn and soybean create a patchwork familiar to most. But drive past PFI member Randy Church’s farm, and you may notice it to be a bit of an oddity. There’s the traditional farmhouse, a barn complete with two grain silos, and a tractor parked out front. Though Randy’s fields still have the well-groomed look of a working farm, orderly rows of native prairie grasses flourish, where soybean once dominated, and trees grow in thick stands all around the property.

“This farm belonged to my dad, and after he passed, my sister and I continued to work it. We grew the usual corn and soybeans. Then in 2021, we decided to take it out of production completely. We need to put something back in this world, and for me, that’s the trees and wildlife. We have two other farms operating in Nebraska and Iowa, both with corn and soybeans, so we felt this one could be given back to nature.”

The Church’s Missouri farm originally consisted of 120 acres, all in production. Now, all 120 acres have been dedicated to conservation, with 35 in CRP, 20 acres in meadow and native prairie grasses and the remaining 65 in timber. The Church’s have also installed four ponds over the last ten years.

Trees as Multifunctional Buffers

The Church farm in Missouri is nearly half timber now, and Randy is delighted by that, but acknowledges that most farmers are not going to want to put half their land out of production. Luckily you don’t have to in order to see benefits from keeping some trees on a working farm, the first being that trees are a natural habitat for wildlife and pollinators. Many of the pollinators we depend on use trees, or more specifically, the bark, notches and holes in the trees, as overwintering habitat, as well as early spring nectar sources. This is especially true for maples and many species of willow. Birds, squirrels, raccoons and deer also use trees as foraging sources and shelter.

Using Native Grasses as Habitat and to Improve Soil and Water Quality

Alongside the 65 acres that Randy has dedicated to timber, he has 20 acres that has been seeded with native prairie grasses. “I put in mostly CP 42 prairie mix in the open areas. Right now, half of it is taller than me, and in a few more years, the rest of the fields will be the same way. Its absolutely beautiful in the summer months when all the grasses out here are flowering, and it’s full of butterflies.”