Konza Prairie Biological Station

The tallgrass prairie, sometimes called bluestem prairie, or 'true' prairie, once extended from Ohio, throughout most of Illinois and Iowa, and much of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. With the coming of the plow, the fertile prairie soils were turned into the most productive agricultural land on earth. Throughout most of this vast area, only a few, isolated prairie remnants survived. In the Flint Hills of Kansas, however, one can still experience this vanished prairie landscape. Here, the weathering of the rocks produced a flinty, gravelly soil which defied the plow. At the heart of the Flint Hills is Konza Prairie Biological Station, the 'Tallgrass Laboratory', the most intensively studied grassland on earth. Konza Prairie is divided into watershed-sized management units with various burning and grazing treatments designed to study the role of fire and grazing in the tallgrass prairie ecosystem.