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Lee Tesdell discusses farming with Lennie, his llama, who guards the farm's sheep.
One important component to prairie strips is their ability to slow water running downhill for farms with sloped fields.
During a group outing Lee Tesdell discusses a possible spring burn to help knock back the brome this year.
An aerial view shows Iowa State University's research into prairie strips.
Lee Tesdell rents a seeder in 2018 from the Polk County Conservation Board at the cost of about $15 per acre.
Prairie strips have disproportional benefits – from putting aside only 10 percent of cropland.
Lennie the llama guards the ewes on the kernza field and prairie strip at the Tesdell Century Farm.
Currently prairie strips are grown on more than 15,000 acres, protecting more than 150,000 cropland acres in 15 states.
An aerial view shows prairie strips on a private farm near Zwingle, Iowa.
Lee Tessler holds up examples of tile used to drain fields in the early 20th century – the ceramic example – and currently – plastic. Tiling contributes to dirty waterways and downstream by moving rainwater and pollutants like nitrates quickly off the land, he says.
A common evening primrose plant, left, likely doesn't produce any flowers in 2022 because it's been ravaged by beetles. But the black-eyed Susans are healthy.
Gray-headed coneflowers fill the foreground; mostly ox-eye grow in the background in one of Lee Tesdell's prairie strips.
An unusual flower in a Tessler prairie strip might be a pink variation of hoary vervain, or maybe narrowleaf vervain.
Ox-eye grows in a prairie strip next to soybeans and corn.
Purple prairie clover grows in a Tesdell prairie strip.
Lots of wild bergamot, also known as bee balm or horsemint, is blooming or on the verge of blooming in 2022 on a Tesdell prairie strip.
Some windflowers are blooming in 2022 on a Tesdell prairie strip, while others have seedheads forming in that characteristic thimble shape.
Sjur Testhal and his father, Erik Testhal, must have been amazed in 1855 when they arrived in Iowa from Norway, to see wide prairies of black fertile soil filled with wildflowers and high grass. Sjur Testhal bought 80 acres in 1884 to start farming in the new paradise.
Marshall McDaniel
Julie Belschner writes on various agricultural issues; she is the managing editor for Agri-View based in Wisconsin.
Lee Tesdall says in an Iowa State University interview, "I am always interested in soil health and water quality. For me these two go together. We who own and operate farms contribute to the excess nutrient problems in Upper Midwest watersheds, so we need to implement research-based practices to reduce the amount of nutrients leaving our farm ground. I also think we should diversify Iowa’s cropping system to reduce erosion, retain our topsoil, and improve our soil health. I am increasing the organic matter in my soils using no-till and cover crops. I am interested to know about the dynamics of the earthworm population affected by the increase in soil organic matter and less soil disturbance. If we can have healthy soil with higher organic matter with no-till, cover crops and prairie strips, then together this system can sequester soil nutrients and the water leaving my farm would be cleaner."
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Lee Tessler holds up examples of tile used to drain fields in the early 20th century – the ceramic example – and currently – plastic. Tiling contributes to dirty waterways and downstream by moving rainwater and pollutants like nitrates quickly off the land, he says.
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