The first EcoSun Prairie Farm, located near Brookings, South Dakota, is intended as a working model of agricultural and ecological sustainability. The 640-acre corn and soybean farm has been leased for five years, beginning in 2008. The centerpiece of the Farm will be the restored tall grass prairie on crop land and rehabilitated remnant swards of CRP and pasture. Also important will be the restoration of the hydrology and wetland grasses in 35 temporary and seasonal wetland basins drained by previous operators. These restored grasslands and wet meadows will form the economic base of the Farm.

The clientele served by this project will be diverse, including current farmers wanting to escape the high costs of tillage machinery, heavy pesticide use, and confining farm price support programs typical of contemporary row-crop agriculture; a growing class of non-traditional farmers, often from a city background, but who desire to live in rural areas, to farm in an ecologically-healthy way, and to produce unsubsidized products such as grass-fed meat which are more and more in demand by the public; and absentee landowners who bought land for outdoor recreation but desire income to make their land payments and pay property taxes. The Prairie Farm will be a model for these and other groups of producers and consumers of an alternative way of making a living from prairie land.

Many questions will be answered through research and monitoring on the Farm, including but not limited to, the rates of carbon sequestration in restored grasslands and wetlands; amount of improvement in surface and ground water quality; production potential of restored grassland for biofuel feedstock; how to balance wildlife and economic benefits; and economical ways to establish and manage restored tall grass prairie.

We expect this project to go a long way towards the goal of designing highly productive, efficient, and ecologically-healthy farms that capture and make available for human use far more energy than they use. Through this project, EcoSun Prairie Farms will gain the knowledge and experience to develop a set of principles and methods to guide the establishment and management of the first generation of grass-based energy farms in the northern Great Plains and Midwest.

Spring-Summer-Fall 2010

2010 was the busiest and most productive year yet on the Prairie Farm. Here are the highlights:

120 more acres of cropland were planted to native grassland.

35 acres of CRP were renovated.

Our first crop of big bluestem hay was baled and sold.

Our first crop of switchgrass seed was combine harvested and sold.

Seeds of two wetland plant species produced on the Prairie Farm were released for sale to the public through Millborn Seed Co.

Seed from a virgin prairie with 220 species of plants was combine harvested in the fall and snow seeded on a 50 acre retired soybean field at the Prairie Farm.

A new exterior fence around the Prairie Farm was started to prepare for the arrival of 75 yearling heifers in 2011 from the Mortenson Ranch in western SD.

100 people attended the first summer tour of the Prairie Farm open to the public on August 15.

Filming of a documentary video on the Prairie Farm was completed.

Spring-Summer 2009

Wetlands

Seeds of four species of sedges and whitetop (Scolochloa) were mass collected from natural, private wetlands in eastern South Dakota in summer 2009 to establish populations in restored wetlands at the Prairie Farm and to sell on the open market. Greenhouse grown plugs of another wetland grass, prairie cordgrass, planted in several Prairie Farm wetlands in 2008 spread out rapidly in 2009. They flowered profusely reaching heights of approximately 10 feet. The cordgrass in these wetlands has developed into prime wildlife habitat with excellent potential as a feedstock crop for biofuel. Cordgrass seed was collected from these wetlands in fall 2009 and used to produce more plugs for transplanting in wetlands in 2010. Cup plant (Silphium) also was plugged in shallow wetland basins to examine its potential as a companion plant with cordgrass as a biofuel feedstock.

Grasslands

Switchgrass and bluestem plantings drilled in 2008 developed into tall, dense stands of vegetation in 2009. Another retired soybean field of 35 acres was planted in 2009 to a warm-season grass and forb mix dominated by big bluestem. As of 2009, approximately 140 of the original 400 acres of cropland had been converted to grassland. The remaining cropland acres will be converted over in 2010 and 2011.

CRP

In 2009, warm season grasses were drilled into a CRP field undergoing renovation. The field (see map on homepage) was treated with herbicide, burned, and disked in 2008. The result was a high quality grassland dominated by Sunnyview big bluestem with high potential as productive, warm-season pasture or biomass feedstock.

Tours

In 2009, tours were conducted for individuals and groups that have provided funding, in-kind contributions, or other forms of support for the Prairie Farm. These include: Millborn Seeds, Inc., Brookings; Sun Grant Research Center (SDSU); Nathan Peterson (Hildebrand Strategies, Sioux Falls); legislative offices of U. S. Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin and U. S. Senator Tim Johnson, and a public tour jointly sponsored by the University of Minnesota Rural Advantage (MN), and SDSU. Tours for the general public are planned for summer 2010.

Next Page - 2007/2008