Landscape restoration in drylands is a slow and arduous process. Success depends on ranchers and ecologists having the same goals, managing adaptively, and agreeing on methods, milestones, and targets. This project started nearly a century ago in South Dakota when homesteaders left deep wagon tracks in drifting, grassless soils as they escaped the Dust Bowl. The Mortenson Ranch was pieced together from about 40 abandoned homesteader claims. Many of the settlers’ fencerows were buried by soil blown from the abandoned fields and overgrazed rangelands. Every acre had been overgrazed or farmed and abandoned. All woody plants had been used for cooking and heating, fenceposts, and corrals. The new owners vowed to restore the land to its pre-settlement condition of thick grass, clear-water streams, dense woody draws, and abundant wildlife. Progress toward this long-term goal was achieved by a guiding land ethic, learning by trial and error, favorable weather, hard work, and collaboration with scientists and land managers. Three generations of faculty from South Dakota State University have assisted three generations of Mortensons in restoring the ranch through consultations, numerous field forays, dozens of public tours, and study of field data from long-term monitoring plots and permanent photo points.
Results/Conclusions
Progress toward restoration goals came in three areas: major reductions in runoff and soil erosion by adopting a re-fenced, rest-rotation grazing system; constructing sediment-collecting dams to rebuild the severely gullied floodplains of streams; and avoiding summer grazing in recovering riparian areas and woody draws. All measures of success improved: increased production of grassland, return of trees to the raised floodplains of streams, increased biodiversity and cover of woody species in upland draws, and rapid build-up of the avifauna numbering 70 nesting bird species. Simultaneously, the ranch become more valuable and profitable; stocking rates, cash rent, and land value nearly doubled from 1960-1998. All parties involved in the ranch restoration agree that the collaboration and mutual respect developed between producers and scientists was the key to success. Clarence Mortenson, the family patriarch and son of a Lakota mother, was awarded an honorary doctorate degree at South Dakota State University; the Mortenson Ranch won the prestigious Leopold Conservation Award in 2012; the Mortenson Ranch story was published in 2015 (iGrow South Dakota). All evidence supports the conclusion that this beautiful, ecologically-rich, and economically-viable ranch, that grew out of the soil drifts of the Dust Bowl, will be around for a long time.