A New Lease on Life for Marginal Farmland: Convergence of Prairie Restoration with Biofuel Production

Summary

The prairie ecosystem that occupied most of the North American continent has been mostly converted into agricultural farmland. The looming global scarcity of fossil fuels has spurred interest in producing ethanol from corn (Zea mays) but legitimate objections remain to the idea of supporting this vision. The purpose of this study was to initiate a prairie restoration on marginal soil of a 16.2 ha. farm in southeastern Minnesota and to determine which restoration procedure (only native grass species versus a mixture of grasses and forbes) was most effective for the establishment of prairie on the land that may yield biomass for biofuels. We planted 11.4Kg./ha. of grasses on 4.7 ha. and 0.70Kg./ha. of forbs on 3.2 ha., in June 2007. An evaluation of species richness was conducted after 90 days in the 5 restored plots. The mean percent cover in the grass plots was 0.935, whereas the one in the grass-and-forbs plots was 0.944. A t-test with two independent samples complemented the computation of the diversity index and indicated that there was not a statistically significant difference in species diversity among the plots. This paper postulates a model of prairie rehabilitation in synergy with renewable energy production from native prairies. This could inspire agriculture in the Midwest of the U.S. to a vision of ecological restoration and sustainability.