Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series of stories about rural innovation in Iowa. See the first story about food carts here.
In a field of goldenrod and blue vervain are dozens of bison, clustered together, ears alert.
One was wallowing, gently rolling around in the dirt, bouncing his head, lolling his body and flopping his tail.
Owner Jathan Chicoine and his wife, Racheal Ruble, have an 180-acre farm in rural Story County called Native Prairie Bison, where they raise 100% grass-fed bison and work to restore native Iowa ecosystems. The property consists of restored native prairie, an oxbow wetland area and one enormous garden with lots of kale.
For Chicoine, rural innovation means constant observation and learning.
He observes the bison, how they wallow to create potholes where animals can get a drink; they rub on cedar trees to keep the prairies open.
“They’re rubbing on the cedars which eventually will stunt the cedars from growing and so it prevents them from taking over,” he said. “And in terms of wallow[ing], it doesn’t just allow a place for birds to get a bath, but it allows that water to seep into the aquifer. And it captures that water for short periods of time and then it’ll soak into the ground.”
He said the bison create “important disturbances” so other native species can get established.
“We learn from them every day,” he said.
Bison in Iowa are “very uncommon,” said Jon Judson, president of Diversity Farms, a natural resources consulting and management business based in Dedham. There are fewer than 100 in the state, he said.
Chicoine, in his efforts to restore the prairie, sees the “big picture,” said Judson, who has helped Chicoine with the prairies and wetlands that he’s created.
“He’s not just putting a little postage stamp of prairie somewhere and thinking that’s going to solve all the world’s problems,” he said. “He continues to look at ways that he can make his property more ecologically valuable.”
In 2012, Chicoine had the opportunity to buy a family herd in southern Iowa. He started with 30, now the family maintains around 40 bison.
Beyond the bison, he holds a keen fascination with the land, and that fuels his learning and innovation as a farmer and landowner.
He said toward the west of his property is a “dramatic drop in elevation.”
“And that was the last glacier system that stopped right here,” he said.
He points to a “true oak savanna,” on the property, featuring towering oaks with the mid-morning light shining through the leaves.
“Oak savannas are one of the most endangered ecosystems, forest ecosystems in Iowa,” he said.
In the area of the oak savanna and his 54-acre restored prairie, he saw about a dozen woodcocks move in and start their mating rituals, a sky dance of sorts.
“We’ve never seen them on this property before, but we put in [the prairie] and we’ve seen them,” he said. “So it’s been fascinating to see that return of native species.”
He also saw on camera a cougar coming through the area. And monarch butterflies are abundant.
Since the 1930s, the restored prairie was farmed, growing corn and soybeans. Today, it is now home to more than 100 species of native plants.
“What was important about that ground is that it’s marginal ground,” he said. “Marginal [is] just a word that means it’s either too sandy, or too steep or rocky.” That means it’s not great for farming, he said.
In the 1980s, Chicoine’s father, Ken Chicoine, purchased the first part of the farm. In 2018, Jathan Chicoine and Ruble purchased the farm along with an additional 28 acres and have continued adding to it.
On another part of his property is an oxbow restoration and shallow water excavation. An oxbow forms after a meandering river finds a different course or it cuts off the old part of the river, Chicoine said.
“Last fall, we actually dug all that alluvial sediment out and we created a beautiful oxbow here,” he said. “That oxbow is really important not only to help filter nutrients and sediment going downstream, but it’s really important to a lot of wildlife. There’s actually an endangered minnow here [in Central Iowa]. … It needs oxbows in order to breed.”
The oxbow project received grant funding through a partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Practical Farmers of Iowa. Additionally, the family contributed to the project and held a fundraiser that raised $5,000 and was matched by the city of Ames, Chicoine said. The 54-acre prairie restoration also had a variety of funding sources, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program and Department of Natural Resources funding.
“Our goal is to create as rich and biodiverse of an ecosystem as possible,” he said.
The family also sells bison meat direct to customers, Chicoine said, though he said that is not the driving force behind restoring the land and maintaining the herd.
“We’re raising the bison to help us restore native ecosystems,” he said.
Chicoine and his family are personally invested as well, with his and Ruble’s day jobs supporting the farm work. Chicoine works as an education consultant with the Iowa Department of Education supporting veterans and families, and Ruble works as a teaching professor at Iowa State University in communication studies and psychology.
“I take a lot of pride that we’ve been able to grow the farm, because it hasn’t been easy,” he said.
Chicoine became interested in conservation as a natural outgrowth from his talks with veterans, he said.
“One of the things in talking with veterans over the years is that many veterans found meaning in military service about being part of something larger than themselves,” said Chicoine, who did a stint in the Navy. “And I think what’s larger than trying to leave the land in better condition for future generations? What’s bigger than trying to create life, create habitat for native species to thrive?”
He said he didn’t study conservation in school but instead he learns by paying attention.
“It’s just observation, and that’s how I’m learning,” he said. “It’s seldom that I’m out here working and not learning something. … You get that immediate feedback from the plants so I just learned from working the land.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect the endangered minnow is in Central Iowa.