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How I Manage My Own Prairie
One of our major objectives at the Platte River Prairies is to experiment with and demonstrate various prairie management techniques and strategies. All those strategies are aimed at creating and...
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Conservation Grazing in Iowa
I got the chance to spend a couple days in Iowa last week, talking about conservation grazing with staff of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. They invited me to join a two day workshop...
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2014 Patch-Burn Grazing Meeting – Platte River Prairies, Nebraska
Curious about patch-burn grazing? Want to get together with other grassland enthusiasts, ranchers, researchers, and wildlife managers and talk about a variety of ways to manage for diverse wildlife...
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How did everything work this year?
This is one of my favorite times of year. It’s not the cool temperatures, the fall colors, or even the fall migrations of birds and insects coming through. Instead, I like this time of year because...
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Prairie Word of the Day – Disturbance
It’s been too long since the initial installment of what was intended to be a regular feature of this blog – the Prairie Word of the Day. Since one blog post does not make a series, I figured I’d...
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Prairie Word of the Day – Habitat Heterogeneity
Do you know what time it is? It’s time for another PRAIRIE WORD OF THE DAY! Today’s Prairie Word of the Day (fine, it’s actually two words) is: Habitat Heterogeneity Heterogeneity is really just a...
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Returning to Nachusa Grasslands
Last week, the Hubbard Fellows and I attended the 24th North American Prairie Conference (NAPC) in Normal, Illinois. The NAPC is always an enjoyable and thought-provoking conference that brings...
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The Role of History In Today’s Prairie Management
Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. I’m no expert in financial investing, but I’d like to retire someday, so I muddle along the best I can. As I skim through various...
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Trusting the Resilience of Prairies
Note to my son (and others who mainly follow this blog to see if there are cool pictures or pictures of them): This is a pretty long and involved post – sorry. The first picture is probably the best...
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The Risks of Managing Prairies Exclusively for Plants
Prairies are often defined as plant communities dominated by grasses, sedges, and wildflowers. However, prairies are also home to thousands of animal species, not to mention countless varieties of...
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Should We Manage for Rare Species or Species Diversity?
Land managers constantly make difficult decisions without really knowing the long-term consequences of their choices. Balancing the sometimes conflicting needs of rare plants like Canada milkvetch...
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Trying to Create Something Different in the Nebraska Sandhills
At our Niobrara Valley Preserve (NVP), we’re experimenting with prairie management techniques to see if we can create a wider range of habitat conditions than is found throughout much of the Nebraska...
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Does Dotted Gayfeather Flower More Under Reduced Competition?
Late summer is definitely a season of yellow flowers in prairies, with goldenrods and sunflowers in the vanguard. However, there are exceptions to the yellow rule, and one of the most prominent of...
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Diversity, Redundancy, and Resilience
Grasslands face a long list of challenges. In many regions, habitat loss and fragmentation top that list, leaving prairies to struggle for survival as tiny isolated patches of habitat. In addition,...
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A Closer Look at Prairie Roots
One of the biggest jobs of a prairie steward is to manage the competition between plants, ensuring that no species becomes too dominant and no species is pushed out of the community. In our prairies,...
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Choosing Your Destination Before You Choose Your Mode of Transport
Last week, I attended a science and stewardship conference of The Nature Conservancy in Madison, Wisconsin. It was an inspiring and thought-provoking week. There were a lot of topics that will...
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