Texas Prairie

From BioPact – "Tallgrass Prairie Center to study polyculture prairie hay for bio-electricity: combining conservation and restoration with bioenergy": "The University of Northern Iowa’s Tallgrass Prairie Center is conducting a five-year project to research how prairie hay can be used to generate electricity, partnering with Cedar Falls Utilities, Soil Tilth Lab at Iowa State University…

Here is the first installment of what I plan to be a regular feature: great quotes, poems, and songs about the prairie. Quotes, poems, and songs can evoke the emotional side of prairies, which I hope will help get more people interested in learning about prairie and prairie conservation. Today’s quotes were spotted on Sioux…

From the MIT Technology Review article "The Price of Biofuel": "Blooming Prairies: Whether ethanol made from cellulosic biomass is good or bad for the environment, however, depends on what kind of biomass it is and how it is grown. In a series of tests, Tilman grew a mixture of native prairie grasses (including switchgrass) in…

From the Dallas Morning News: "UTA students win for park project: University of Texas at Arlington students won the Student Project Award from the Midwest Section of the Texas chapter of the American Planning Association. The project focuses on a proposed Fort Worth Prairie Park, a 1,983-acre section of prairie in southwest Tarrant County, some…

From the Hidden Trails blog: "Renowned National Geographic photographer is considered one of the premier wildlife photographers in the world. However, this Minnesota-based artist doesn’t measure his success by the numerous national and international awards and honors he has received. Rather, he gleans a well-earned sense of satisfaction from a steadfast and long-term commitment to…

Butterflies like the Monarch have always been one of my favorite parts of the prairie. MonarchWatch has some interesting prairie-as-habitat information on their web site and have even started a blog.  For example, in "Status Report on the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) in Canada" by Crolla and Lafontaine they state: In the last 150 years there…

From the Austin-American Statesman article, "State’s biggest park offers improved access and more campsites", about TPWD’s Big Bend State Park (not the national park): "The state acquired the land for this park in 1988. Heavy grazing by sheep and goats from the 1850s to 1940s took a toll, diminishing the grasslands and giving shrubs an…

In Texas, prairie lives on only in name in many places.  In my experience, most people living in tallgrass prairie ecoregions aren’t aware they live in such a region, don’t know it is an endangered ecosystem, and have never seen the beauty of tallgrass prairie. One method of helping people realize they live in former…

A story on MyWestTexas.com talks about the possibility of the Mallet Ranch (Hockley County) in the High Plains becoming an outdoor education center.  I don’t know if the author is referring to the whole 50,000 acre ranch or just an area around the ranch buildings, or if the Mallet Ranch still contains good quality shortgrass…

Texas Master Naturalist Marybeth Arnold volunteers to restore native coastal tallgrass prairie for the endangered Attwater’s Prairie Chicken at TNC’s Texas City Prairie Preserve.  From the Houston Chronicle story: "The work of restoring a vanishing habitat can also be backbreaking, blister-raising labor, but Arnold doesn’t mention that. Nor does she brag about the fact that…