Mike Saxton – Executive Director – Friends of Nachusa Grasslands

The Friends of Nachusa Grasslands recently protected a 195-acre tract adjacent to The Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa Grasslands. The new acquisition is an important site with restoration potential for high-levels of native biodiversity.

In the 1939 aerial (left), you can see row crop fields and can make out cattle paths through pasture (likely native prairie). Oaks are scattered in the southwest corner of the unit.

In the current aerial (right), the row crop acreage remains virtually unchanged while all of the pasture has gone through old field succession, transitioning from open prairie to closed canopy woodland. The formerly open oak corner is now fully stocked and densely treed.

When Friends of Nachusa Grasslands protected this tract in December 2025, the woodlands were an impenetrable thicket of bush honeysuckle. The once open pasture (presumably prairie plants in 1939) is now a majority black cherry and Osage orange. The south, southwest and west facing slopes have pockets of little bluestem in scattered eastern red cedar openings. In the late 1990s, prairie petunia (Ruellia humilis) was still growing in the few remaining light gaps.

Eventually, we will restore the row crop fields to high diversity, rich habitat for which Nachusa Grasslands is well known. Going from row-crop to prairie is a fairly straightforward process.

But restoring and caring for 65-acres of formerly open prairie/pasture which is now a cherry and Osage orange woodland is a much more challenging task. What can our investment of time, energy and stewardship restore?

We are assessing the challenges and opportunities this project presents and after just a month of ownership, nearly 50 acres of brush has been mowed and scores of trees felled. We are energized and eager!

How soon can we begin to manage the area with fire? How much (perhaps precious little) remnant prairie was hidden in the thickets? After decades of shading and successional transition, will there be unforeseen invasives springing up? At what point do we actively begin seeding? What is a realistic timeline for our stewardship efforts? These and many, many others are the questions we are pondering.

Our work is that of trial-and-error and we learn by doing. In the months and years to come, a combination of invasive species control, Rx fire, and generous seed addition will be invested in the site. Staff and volunteers will invest mightily in this site. We will document progress and share our results. Stewardship has a beginning but no end!