Producers, scientists tell Kansas committee woody plants are replacing grasslands, cutting water and forage

At a Kansas legislative committee hearing, ranchers, scientists and conservation groups described the rapid spread of woody plants — particularly eastern red cedar — across the state's native grasslands and urged coordinated action to restore and maintain prairie habitat.

David Craft, director of the Kansas Grazing Lands Coalition, told the committee that Kansas rangelands include nearly 15.8 million acres of native range and that another roughly 3 million acres are enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program. “To maintain, enhance, restore, or regenerate our Kansas grasslands, we all need to play our part,” Craft said, describing threats that include fragmentation, invasive grasses and the “rapid expansion of woody species.”

The hearing drew scientific testimony about how woody encroachment changes hydrology as well as forage. Dr. Jesse Nippert, a researcher at Kansas State University who oversees long-term work at the Konza Prairie research site, described field measurements showing that woody plants can use roughly twice as much water per unit area as grasses. Nippert said measured data from long-term plots show woody encroachment has dried deep soil moisture and increased water loss through transpiration by about 25 percent in places where woody cover has risen by roughly 20 percent.

Nippert scaled the local measurements to regional impact: he said a published estimate placed about 15,000 square kilometers of the Flint Hills under some degree of woody encroachment and that the additional water loss associated with that encroachment could be on the order of 2,200,000 acre-feet — roughly seven times the current holding capacity of Tuttle Creek Reservoir, which he cited at about 300,000 acre-feet. “Even if you don't care about forage ... I bet you care about water. And we're losing a lot of water,” Nippert said.

Ranchers described management experience and on-the-ground tactics. Daniel Muschrush, a Chase County rancher, said his family has used mechanical tree removal on headwaters and is experimenting with virtual fencing to concentrate grazing and help fire carry into creek corridors. “Once we get this expensive mechanical tree control done, we can handle it more economically in the future,” Muschrush said.

Russell Blue, a ranch manager in Barber County, emphasized prescribed fire and collaborative burning. Blue said the Konza Prairie is managed with set burn frequencies and stressed that, statewide, current burn acreage is insufficient to reverse woody spread. “We can't effectively put enough fire on the range,” he said, describing prescribed-burn associations that pool equipment and personnel to carry larger, planned burns.

Witnesses and lawmakers discussed tools and obstacles: mechanical removal (mulchers, tracked equipment), repeated prescribed burning on shorter intervals in heavily encroached areas, and federal and state assistance. Craft and others cited costs and logistical limits: some control chemicals are expensive and inaccessible on rough terrain, and mechanical remediation can require repeated effort to prevent seedlings from reestablishing.

Speakers described programs and partnerships that have been used or proposed. Participants referenced the Natural Resources Conservation Service and a GPGI program used by some producers, the federal Conservation Reserve Program, local prescribed burn associations, and university research at Konza Prairie. Several witnesses asked for more public outreach to reduce fear of prescribed fire and for coordinated state messaging about grasslands and fire.

Committee members asked for clarifications about water impacts, tree species that are most drought-tolerant, land-valuation and tax incentives, conservation easements, and how to support landowners who lack equipment or labor. Muschrush and others warned of market pressures: some landowners convert pasture to recreational uses that favor woody cover, and high land values or out-of-state buyers can make it more difficult for working ranches to remain viable.

The committee chair closed the hearing by saying the panel would continue the conversation in future meetings and noted upcoming bill hearings on other conservation and agriculture measures. No formal committee action was taken on the testimony at this session.