STRIPs Research Team

Go to this research team's website

Purpose

This team of researchers, educators and extension specialists are conducting STRIPs, Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairies. They are conducting much of their work at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge on plots set up in 2008 as part of a Leopold Center competitive grant.

Formerly known as "the Perennializers," this team is working to target conservation practices in conventional corn-soybean landscapes where they will create big improvements in environmental quality with only small changes in overall agricultural production.

The goals of the STRIPs Research Team:

• Vary according to each research project
• Cover a wide range of educational and learning metrics
• Provide new environmental and production knowledge
• Lead to implications for landuse and policy

Research team resources

• Watch video about birds at the STRIPs project - Feb. 2012
• A Landowner's Guide to Prairie Conservation Strips, a four-page color fact sheet that offers tips for planting and maintaining prairie strips on row-cropped farms
• Watch video about the landowner's guide from the Sustainable Agriculture Land Tenure Initiative
• Incorporating Prairies into Multifunctional Landscapes, this 26-page color publication looks at ways that prairies can be incorporated into farms, how they affect nearby crops, benefits they offer, and resources to establish your own prairie
• A Targeted Approach for Improving Environmental Quality, a 20-page color publication that makes the case for strategic use of trees, prairies and other perennials in key parts of the landscape to result in multiple environmental benefits and only a small change in overall agricultural production
• General flier about the project [PDF]
• Poster - Evaluation of Ecosystem Services [PDF]
• Photo gallery from September 2009 field day
• Photo gallery from June 2011 stakeholder field day; report of stakeholder discussions [PDF]
• Watch video about the project (Nov 2008)

Related competitive grants

• Investigating opportunities for enhancing farmer adoption of strategically targeted prairie strips in Iowa (P2012-08)
• Blurring the lines between working and conservation lands: Bird use of prairie strips in row-cropped watersheds (E2011-20)
• Optimizing buffer strips for improved ecosystem services (E2009-09)
• The impact of biodiversity services in row crop production in annual verses perennial landscapes (E2006-13)
• Variations in water and nutrient cycling and soil properties during agricultural landscape restoration (2004-E14)

More photos, research papers and profiles of all team members can be found on the STRIPs Research Team website.