A Prairie Preserved

The Colvin Ranch Is the First in Washington to Participate in the Grassland Reserve Program
 

"Right now the prairie is as pretty as it can be," Fred Colvin said Thursday before becoming the first Washington landowner to sign his land into the Grassland Reserve Program.

Colvin's signature on Thursday ensured his descendants will also be able to look out on the prairie, rather than a housing development or a field taken over by non-native Scotch broom.

It might have been easier for the pioneering Colvins to take the beauty of the prairie for granted than his descendants. After all, there were once an estimated quarter-million acres of prairie in Western Washington. Today, the 216 acres on the Colvin ranch just west of Tenino, signed into the GRP, are among about 3,000 acres of prairie that remain. Several thousand more acres are preserved on Fort Lewis.

Land remains usable

The voluntary Grassland Reserve Program pays landowners to protect and restore grasslands while allowing them to continue using the land to graze their cattle.

For Fred Colvin, the ability to continue using the land was what sold him on signing up.

"This program recognizes the importance of private ownership and working lands," said Colvin, who has 100 cattle on the ranch, as well as another 120 yearlings for part of the year.

Those cattle will be key in controlling the non-native grasses that, unchecked, would take over the native plants on the prairie, according to Marty Chaney, an agronomist for the National Resources Conservation Service, which administers the program. In a normal prairie ecosystem, fire is a key element in maintaining the balance of prairie plants.

That's not an option in Thurston County, where those controlled burns are not allowed. Herbicides and mowing don't work well either.

That means the job falls to the cattle.

By allowing them to graze parts of the prairie only at certain times of the year, the cows eat the non-native grasses without disturbing the prairie plants.

For example, many native prairie plants go dormant in the summer. The cattle grazing during those times will eat non-native grasses without damaging the natives.

What the cows prefer

The cows actually prefer to eat grasses rather than flowers and, in the grass category, they prefer the softer, non-native grasses to those of the native prairie, Chaney said.

Those facts, combined with careful monitoring and movement of the cattle onto different portions of the ranch, will be the prairie's chief allies.

"Those cows, they're a conservation tool," Colvin said. "That's a shift in thought to what we thought previously."

To control where the cattle graze, Colvin has divided up the prairie into about 30 fields, set off with fencing. He worked with NRCS staff to develop a grazing plan, which takes several factors into consideration in deciding which field is ready to be grazed. For example, lower fields that are soaked from rains will be off-limits to cattle.

The adversaries of the remaining prairies in Western Washington are primarily development and non-native plants.

Doris Colvin, Fred's mother, said people often ask her about their plans for the land.

"They ask me so many times, 'you're not going to develop that land, are you?' "

The answer has always, and always will be, a definite no.

Fred Colvin said he saw the urgency of protecting the land about three years ago when a housing development was proposed across the highway.

"We were concerned about what was going on around us," he said.

Gus Hughbanks, a state conservationist with NRCS, said there's not a lot of funding available through the GRP program, but that it's important for interested landowners to sign up so their land can be evaluated. The projects will be accepted based on their land's biodiversity and whatever specific threats the land faces.
(story by Barry Gintar, The Olympian)
Your contact is Ron Nichols, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 509-323-2912.