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Message from the President
Jon Wingo at MPF’s
Denison Prairie.
Carol Davit
The earliest settlers to Missouri scorned the
prairie land and built log houses in the
timbered hills. At the time it was believed
that prairie lands would not support crops, but
any doubts about the suitability of unforested
prairie soil for general agriculture were allayed by
General Thomas Adams Smith in the 1820s. As
our Executive Director Carol Davit shared in her
remarks at the 2013 Missouri Prairie Foundation
(MPF) dinner, Smith’s experimental prairie farm in
Saline County was a profitable operation. Smith’s
“Experiment Farm” proved that grasslands were
fertile and could be cultivated with less labor than
woodlands. As quoted in Wentmore’s Gazette of
1837, “Smith was highly respected and news of
his accomplishment spread. His popularization of
prairie farming proved invaluable as the settlement frontier reached the Great
Plains in western Missouri.”
If we move forward a century after the prairie sod was broken, we come
to a lesson learned the hard way. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s resulted from a
devastating drought that increased wind erosion, carrying fertile topsoil from
the Midwest to as far away as Washington, D.C. The Dust Bowl made soil
erosion enter into the American public consciousness of the 1930s.
Today it is evident that, in order to maintain and increase food production,
efforts to prevent soil degradation must become a top priority of our
global society. Soil health is the measure of balance between the physical,
chemical, and biological properties and organismal populations within the
soil. Soil health has become a buzzword among agronomists and some are
looking back to prairie to determine baseline conditions for soil health.
A group from MPF’s Executive Committee met with soil scientists
Dr. David Hammer and Dr. Bob Kremer at the University of Missouri-
Columbia in January to discuss use of MPF’s remnant prairies for research
in setting a baseline for soil health. It was very enlightening and exciting to
learn about cutting-edge technology to evaluate the microbial communities
in the soil such as PFLA marking. Phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA) are
a main component of the membrane (essentially the skin) of all microbes.
PLFA analysis provides direct information on the entire microbial community
in three key areas: viable living biomass, community composition of
population fingerprint, and microbial activity.
I hope you enjoy the articles in this issue of the Missouri Prairie Journal,
including the one on prairie strips. It gives me hope that by embracing
modern-day technologies, proven Best Management Practices, and learning
from the past, our society will be able to continue to conserve soil resources,
natural ecosystems, and produce food supplies sufficient to meet current and
future population demands.
Soil is the foundation of agriculture, but in midcontinental North
America, prairie was the foundation of our agricultural soils.
Jon Wingo, President
The mission of the Missouri Prairie Foundation (MPF)
is to protect and restore prairie and other
native grassland communities through
acquisition, management, education, and research.
Officers
President Jon Wingo, Wentzville, MO
Immediate Past President Stanley M. Parrish, Walnut Grove, MO
Vice President Doris Sherrick, Peculiar, MO
Vice President of Science and Management Bruce Schuette, Troy, MO
Secretary Van Wiskur, Pleasant Hill, MO
Treasurer Laura Church, Kansas City, MO
Directors
Susan E. Appel, Leawood, KS
Dale Blevins, Independence, MO
Glenn Chambers, Columbia, MO
Brian Edmond, Walnut Grove, MO
Margo Farnsworth, Smithville, MO
Page Hereford, St. Louis, MO
Scott Lenharth, Nevada, MO
Wayne Morton, M.D., Osceola, MO
Steve Mowry, Trimble, MO
Donnie Nichols, Warsaw, MO
Jan Sassmann, Bland, MO
Bonnie Teel, Rich Hill, MO
Presidential Appointees
Doug Bauer, St. Louis, MO
Galen Hasler, M.D., Madison, WI
Rick Thom, Jefferson City, MO
Emeritus
Bill Crawford, Columbia, MO
Bill Davit, Washington, MO
Lowell Pugh, Golden City, MO
Owen Sexton, St. Louis, MO
Technical Advisors
Max Alleger, Clinton, MO
Jeff Cantrell, Neosho, MO
Steve Clubine, Windsor, MO
Dennis Figg, Jefferson City, MO
Mike Leahy, Jefferson City, MO
Dr. Quinn Long, St. Louis, MO
Rudi Roeslein, St. Louis, MO
Dr. James Trager, Pacific, MO
Staff
Carol Davit, Executive Director and
Missouri Prairie Journal Editor, Jefferson City, MO
Richard Datema, Prairie Operations Manager, Springfield, MO
2 Missouri Prairie Journal Vol. 35 No. 1