Farmers restore native grasslands as groundwater disappears
Associated PressMULESHOE, Texas — For decades, the Texas Panhandle was green with cotton, corn and wheat. “There’s a reason Mother Nature selected those plants to be in those areas,” says Nick Bamert, whose father started a seed company specializing in native grasses 70 years ago. the water’s going away,” says Jude Smith, a biologist who oversees the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, established during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl to preserve native prairie and three spring-fed lakes. So farmers may need to use some remaining groundwater to reestablish native grasses, says study co-author Meagan Schipanski, an associate professor of soil and crop sciences at Colorado State University. But farmers need programs that allow them to earn a living while they make the transition to grasslands and less irrigation, over perhaps 15 years, says Amy Kremen of the Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project.
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Farmers restore native grasslands as groundwater disappears
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