Why We’re Doing This — and What the Land Needs

An honest restoration starts by looking hard at what you actually have. What we have is a tired piece of Central Texas: a hay field that's been run as improved pasture for decades, river frontage thinned out by grazing and erosion, and uplands where a few tough introduced grasses have crowded out almost everything else. The land isn't ruined, but it's a long way from what a Central Texas prairie and riparian corridor should be. Closing that gap is the whole project.

This land has been in the family for four generations. It was originally cleared of cedar and mesquite, farmed for seed wheat in the '40s, grazed for decades, then held in Tifton 85 hay for the last twenty years. Each of those phases was based on the job the land got asked to do at the time. That is what we inherited, and this is the next phase.

The core problem: a monoculture that works too well

Most of the working acres are Tifton 85 bermudagrass, with Johnsongrass filling in the edges and creeping into our field from a neighboring property. These grasses are excellent forage, stubbornly good at their job, and very hard to kill. They form dense, single-species mats that shade out native seedlings, give almost nothing to grassland birds or pollinators, and leave the soil biology a lot simpler than a native prairie's. A field of Tifton 85 is green, productive, and silent.

The fixes, in order

Restoration is a phased process, not a single move. The first phase is to convert the exotic pasture back to native prairie under the Texas Parks & Wildlife Pastures for Upland Birds program. We first knock down the introduced grasses, then no-till drill a native grass-and-forb mix built for this ecoregion. Second, revitalize the river conservation strip, which has lost trees to grazing and erosion, by replanting trees, shrubs, and a dense understory so a riparian buffer can come back. Third, build the woody structure back property-wide. We will plant a shelterbelt on the high ground and scattered mottes across the oak savannah and prairie.

The problems we already see coming

We'd rather name the risks than pretend they aren't there. Reinvasion of the bermudagrass and Johnsongrass is a big one. They don't quit after the first or second treatment; they just slow to a crawl. The spot-treatment fight that follows, with a backpack sprayer and a patch at a time, will run for years until the last of the Tifton is gone. Establishment is the second: native seed is slow, and a dry fall after drilling can cost us a whole planting. Water's the third — new plantings need it before their roots go deep, which is why a watering trailer is on the build list. And the last one is just time and continuity. This isn't a project that pays off in a single growing season.

The honest horizon

The seed we drill won't look like prairie for years. Realistically the mix needs three to five years to knit into something that carries itself. The opening arc of the whole thing, conversion, riparian buffer, shelterbelt, first woody plantings, is a ten-year process to get it to take hold. After that it's still not "done," but the work changes a little. Grassland is a disturbance ecosystem, and it wants fire and grazing and attention for as long as anyone keeps it. The idea we keep in mind is that we're planting things we won't see finished. Restoration will eventually turn into preservation and land management. That phase will likely be the job of the next generation to inherit this land.