Amid ‘the most altered landscape in America,’ this 100-acre plot in Johnson County remains rich and wild
- Thread starter THE_DEVIL
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Yeah.... when you fly over flyover country and look out the window, it's just a patchwork of farmland squares. Nothing natural.
Great article, thanks for sharing. It’s absolutely disgusting what this once great landscape has been reduced too. I’m a proud member of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation and have been working hard on transforming most of our 5 acres back to native landscapes. It’s not glamorous work and I won’t get to enjoy the shade from most of the trees I’ve planted, but it’s the most responsible thing I can do for this planet and I hope it inspires others.
Didn’t that get harder after the last legislative session? We have some marginal farmland that we’ve been thinking about approaching a conservation trust over. It really should be taken out of production.
I can’t answer that, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It was never farmland just an acreage, we only utilize 2 acres and are slowly transforming the rest.
Just like driving through Coral Gables or Coconut Grove. Nothing natural.
Those neighborhoods were beautiful-back in the late 60’s.
But I get your point.
One area of the country that I’d like to see just because I’ve read about how it looked back in the pioneer prairie times is the “heartland”.
Agreed,
Signed, 7 Billion people who eat and live because of this transformation.
I’m set to inherit a couple hundred acres of century farmland. OP, I promise you, when the land is mine, instead of renting it out for planting each season and making bank, I’ll let it sit. I will collect no money from it. And, the good Lord willing, my acres will return to beautiful prairie grass. Which, is for the benefit of…..nobody.
You are an absolute moron just like your father, and your father’s father. There is no hope for your ilk. If you cared to do any kind of research at all, you would understand that it benefits everything!
People like you are geniuses, you must be a steward of the land right? How did civilizations ever exist without big ag? Your okay with 99.9% of the once beautiful and very diverse landscape that was once Iowa, being plowed under to feed people in China?
I'm in! Plant trees, quit mowing, adopt holier than thou attitude.
Check, check, and check! Let's do this!
Everybody grew their own food. We can go back to doing that, but I would guess the people in big cities that tell us how the world should work would be f#*&ed.
There’s certainly no hope for me in the eyes of a sanctimonious asshole, like yourself. Fortunately, for me, the real world needs to eat. Including you. Farmland in Iowa sort of plays a huge part in making that happen.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but there’s one hell of a lot more people on earth now than existed in the puritan utopia you’re striving to bring back. Demand is sort of up.
For most of Iowa, the native landscape is actually not prairie.
In central and almost the entire eastern part of Iowa the native landscape is oak savanna, and with a little bit of forward planning and some planting, you could restore the landscape to its absolutely stunning original condition. An oak Savannah is grassland with sparsely growing trees, and absolute dream for settlers because they had the wood to build their houses, and they didn’t have a whole forest to clear.
it takes a lot of years for oak trees to grow, so what you would be doing is something for the future.
and to make sure that it is truly for the future, at some point, you could create a land trust or just give it to one of the many truly outstanding nonprofit or governmental organizations that are charged with protecting natural areas. Here in Johnson County, people regularly give land, big and small acreages, to nonprofits or the government, or they set up their own. For example a family friend created their own nonprofit for the hundred or so acres they owned on the east side of Iowa city, surrounded by houses, and they’ve been making it into a sculpture garden. They request a small membership fee to visit, built a pavilion and an indoor place for rentals and events, and it’s just amazing. In almost any other place, people would have sold that land for many millions, but they wanted it preserved. There’s even a stone circle that is quite magical at night. Yes, Stonehenge right here in Iowa city.
So for anyone who has land that they want to restore and preserve and make into a public good, there are many models to follow. At the end of the day and at the end of our lives, is it really our land? Can we own the environment? Or the planet? Why is it that only 64 people in the world on 1/2 of the worlds wealth? I believe that each of us can do our part to restore the balance and protect the future, our children and grandchildren and everybody else’s.
Home | Harvest Preserve
It's nice to see a thread that doesn't have polar opposite idiots posting to each other (don't know the sarcasm emoji)
How does civilization exist without BEES?
i could go on with the peril that ALL our food is in now because of bee “colony collapse syndrome” stemming from loss of native habitat and only partly understood consequences of pesticides etc.
Civilizations that lived unsustainably through it history have also collapsed. The “big ag” of Easter Island, clearing the trees etc, hunting to extinction etc, is just one well known example.
Don’t get me started on honey bees! I’m all about native bees, why do you think I’m planting native plants?
I could give you a lot more ideas. But you’re too selfish, so I won’t waste my time. If you’re not part of the solution….
Csb: Before I met my wife no pics, her and her mother had gone to des moines to fight a planned hog confinement near their home. They ended up winning and now it is a full section (640 acres I think?) of prairie grass preserve.
Farmland in Iowa is only doing a small fraction of what it could to feed the world, which is unfortunate because an entire living system was sacrificed. Around 90% of Iowa's highly-subsidized corn crop is used to produce ethanol and feed livestock. Despite rosier assessments funded by corporate ag dollars, corn-based ethanol probably only breaks even when the energy inputs and other environmental impacts are considered. Feeding livestock crops instead of direct human consumption is also very energetically inefficient, and livestock production comes with another set of environmental problems. And the remaining 10% of the corn crop that is consumed by humans is largely in the form of processed empty calories. It's mind-boggling to think about how many humans Iowa's land could feed sustainably if the goal were to produce large amounts of nutritious food. It's a shame that a once-great landscape was sacrificed for the eventual result of a system of unsustainable, heavily-subsidized corporate agriculture.
I wish burning was a more common practice in Iowa. My suburb burns areas of the city (under large powerlines, areas of parks, ditches and areas by roads) every spring and it's beautiful and filled with biodiversity. It really helps a lot.
There’s really no hope for people like him. They are not critical thinkers and are typically very self centered.
Saw a yard that looked unkept and not mowed recently. Weeds and crap all over.
I was told it was the natural look.
whatever.
I was told it was the natural look.
whatever.
Lol. Not a lot of trees here back in the day. Good job returning things to natural. Too hilarious
Food is the public goodFor most of Iowa, the native landscape is actually not prairie.
In central and almost the entire eastern part of Iowa the native landscape is oak savanna, and with a little bit of forward planning and some planting, you could restore the landscape to its absolutely stunning original condition. An oak Savannah is grassland with sparsely growing trees, and absolute dream for settlers because they had the wood to build their houses, and they didn’t have a whole forest to clear.
it takes a lot of years for oak trees to grow, so what you would be doing is something for the future.
and to make sure that it is truly for the future, at some point, you could create a land trust or just give it to one of the many truly outstanding nonprofit or governmental organizations that are charged with protecting natural areas. Here in Johnson County, people regularly give land, big and small acreages, to nonprofits or the government, or they set up their own. For example a family friend created their own nonprofit for the hundred or so acres they owned on the east side of Iowa city, surrounded by houses, and they’ve been making it into a sculpture garden. They request a small membership fee to visit, built a pavilion and an indoor place for rentals and events, and it’s just amazing. In almost any other place, people would have sold that land for many millions, but they wanted it preserved. There’s even a stone circle that is quite magical at night. Yes, Stonehenge right here in Iowa city.
So for anyone who has land that they want to restore and preserve and make into a public good, there are many models to follow. At the end of the day and at the end of our lives, is it really our land? Can we own the environment? Or the planet? Why is it that only 64 people in the world on 1/2 of the worlds wealth? I believe that each of us can do our part to restore the balance and protect the future, our children and grandchildren and everybody else’s.
Home | Harvest Preserve
www.harvestpreserve.org
The natural state of eastern Iowa used to be ocean. Which era is the natural state you so pine for?
Coralville. I think you should take your property and flood it with salt water. Take it all the way back
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