Moe Linden farms and runs cattle in Lane County, Kansas. He has a playa, about 40 acres in size, that he manages for wildlife habitat and hunting. “A playa is hard to farm. You might get one out of six years where you could grow a good crop, but the clay soil in the bottom is kind of prohibitive to farming it. So I think it’s a waste of time to farm them; might as well do something else. The playa attracts all sorts of wildlife — from upland wildlife to the deer and antelope. We get cranes, we get ducks, we get geese coming in there. Everything frequents that place.”

Andy Hineman is a dryland farmer in Lane County, Kansas. He is focused on increasing the efficiency of his operation, which includes taking many of his playas out of production and enrolling them in a conservation program. “In our combines we’ve got yield mapping capabilities, so it’s easy to look at each field that has playas. It’s pretty evident those are a big fat zero on most of the years compared to the rest of the field. It makes it pretty easy to decide to enroll it into a program that’s going to be beneficial for the environment and wildlife — and put money back in my pocket.”

Vance and Louise Ehmke are happy to talk about playas, and they know what they’re talking about; there are approximately 80 playas, give or take a few, on their 10,000-acre farm in Lane County, Kansas. According to Vance, for every 1,000 acres of crop or rangeland, there’s about 40 acres of playa in there.

“From a farming point of view, playas are clearly the least profitable acres on the farm. These playa lakes are wetlands. Farming them gets you stuck out there, and you have crop failures. Every place we had wheat planted this year, the playa lakes were a complete loss because they flooded out,” explains Vance.

Playas — also called buffalo wallows, lagoons, and mud holes — are relatively small, round, shallow depressions found primarily in the western Great Plains. Their basins are lined with clay soil, which collects and holds water from rainfall and runoff, creating temporary lakes. In a wet spring, playas in agricultural fields usually flood out, resulting in crop failure. In the fall, when it’s very dry, the clay in the playa basin also makes it very hard to farm those areas.

Stopped Farming Playas

“Years ago, it dawned on me, why knock my head against the wall?! Periodically, I had a real nice crop, but I mostly had a very high incidence of crop failure, or I couldn’t get a stand. It felt pretty good when I decided to quit farming those playas.”

For the past 15-20 years, the Ehmkes have been enrolling many of their playas in conservation programs, like the USDA Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). When many of their original CRP contracts expired and they couldn’t get those acres back into the program, Vance and Louise left the playas in grass, farmed around them, and started looking into other options.

Vance says their goal is to get all those playas back into a conservation program. “We’re constantly looking at the various programs to see if any of them will be a good fit or not.”

“We want to keep them, but it’s nice to have some help,” adds Louise. “It’s a good feeling doing it, but honestly it takes capital, some dollars, to keep playas out of production. You also get technical aid and advice on what you’re going to do and how to do it from Natural Resources Conservation Service. Yes, there are some hoops to jump through, but that’s part of getting the benefits.”

The Perfect Fit

Earlier this year, the Ehmkes found the perfect fit when USDA announced a new CRP practice—the Migratory Bird State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE), also known as CP38B—which provides a market-based financial incentive for restoring playas and planting a native grass buffer. Using a reverse auction, landowners submit an offer for the amount they are willing to accept as an annual payment for a period of 10–15 years. The bids are evaluated in a competitive process, with the lowest, most reasonable benefit-weighted bid amounts accepted.

Vance has nothing but praise for the new Migratory Bird SAFE: “Everything about this program is right. It’s a very well-designed program.”

During the first bidding period, the Ehmkes had 14 tracts, with a total of 15-20 playas on them, accepted into the program. That’s about 135-140 acres of playas, plus another 30 acres of buffer, according to Vance. And that’s just the beginning.

“Ultimately, we hope to get the rest of those playas into the program,” says Vance. “Playas are a real pain in the butt to farm. If you get them out of production, you just don’t have to worry about it.”

Making a Contribution

Practical and financial considerations were certainly a big part of the Ehmkes’ decision to stop farming playas, but that isn’t the first thing they mention when asked about this natural resource. Rather, you’ll hear phrases like “it makes us feel good,” “taking care of our furred and feathered friends,” and “making a contribution to maintaining the diversity of the area.”

Their biggest playa, which is about 125 acres in size, has been visited by many different groups, from school children to researchers. There’s even a viewing platform that visitors can climb to get a better view. It’s been about 10 years since the playa was full of water, but big rain events still bring water into the playa. This past April was one of those times, when heavy rains turned the playa into a marsh—and it came to life. According to Vance and Louise, the moisture brings many non-human visitors to the playa including frogs, ducks, geese, pelicans, cranes, egrets, herons, avocets, and fairy shrimp, those small invertebrates that provide food for the hungry birds.

When talking about this aspect of playas, Louise’s excitement is evident. “How cool it is to show that to your kids and the school kids that come for tours! They tend to think that nothing happens out on the plains, that it is just boring countryside. Then you educate and enlighten them about what’s going on and how the playa comes alive. It’s really neat to share that history and appreciation of the High Plains and to show them this ecosystem is just as important as anybody else’s.”

Studying Aquifer Recharge

Their big playa has also been of great interest to various researchers over the years, from archeologists to hydrologists. A current multi-year study by the University of Kansas Department of Geography and Kansas Geological Society is looking at playas as a source of recharge to the High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer. The approach, according to Bill Johnson, one of the lead researchers, is to evaluate aspects such as the playa water holding capacity (basin volume), infiltration capacity, and conductance of surface water through the unsaturated zone, which is about 13 meters or 42.6 feet.

“During our previous subsurface explorations using backhoe trenching and machine coring in playa basins in the region, we’ve seen visual evidence of downward water movement through the basin floor, as well as the basin edges, in the form of carbonate precipitated by the moving water,” explains Bill, “but our work at Ehmke playa is looking at recharge from the active or process perspective using above- and below-surface sensors.“

To do this, they have installed three groundwater monitoring wells equipped with a variety of instruments for measuring rainfall, surface water depth in the playa, wind direction and speed, humidity, temperature (air and soil surface), and groundwater chemistry. The monitoring wells and equipment were in place in time to collect data this spring when it was so wet, but it will still be some time before all the data are analyzed and the results are in.

Vance says they’ve been really blessed to have that big playa on their property. “We’ve had many, many, many people visit from all over the United States and other countries—scientists, archeologists, engineers, you name it—and we’ve learned a huge amount about our farm, how the soils originated, and the history of this area.”

“We have some fascinating stuff going on here in western Kansas,” adds Louise, “and we’re pretty significant. We should call this area Playa Lake Country!”

Terry Davis, who farms about 1,000 acres of milo and wheat in northwest Kansas, is the first one in Graham County to enroll playas into a Wetland Reserve Easement through USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). He has two playas, just across the road from each other, that are going into permanent easements.

“At first I was going to do a 30-year easement, but my brother said, ‘Shoot, you know you’re going to be 90 in 30 years,’ so we put it in perpetual, forever, both sides of the road.”

One of the playas, about 20 acres in size, is on ground he’s owned since the 1970s. He considered putting it into a wetland program eight to ten years ago, but every once in awhile, he’d raise a crop in there. Several years ago, Terry and his wife purchased a piece of ground across the road which also had a playa on it, and that prompted him to do a bit more investigating.

“I don’t want to plant this ground,” he said to himself. “I don’t need to be wasting time and money working this.”

In October 2016, after he finished cutting his milo, Terry went into the local NRCS office to get some information about Wetland Reserve Easements and maybe start the process for next year. He wasn’t committed; Terry just thought he’d get more information about the program. The next thing he knew, he was putting in his application.

“I’m in the farming business. Taking that much ground out of production is kind of a head scratcher, but sometimes you’re wasting money farming it. I’m on board fixing it up as best I can.”

Terry describes his operation as somewhat small for northwest Kansas. He does it all himself. He’s a no-till guy and uses cover crops to keep the soil alive.

“I think cover crops are good for the soil. They are good for keeping the sun and wind off of the soil. The biggest battle up in our country is lack of moisture, so anything I can do to help save the moisture, I like to do that.”

Terry also wants to work with wildlife folks from Ducks Unlimited, Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, and NRCS to make these 100 acres going into a Wetlands Reserve Easement the best possible wetland habitat to compliment the 100 acres nearby that are in the USDA Conservation Reserve Program. Those acres have been in the program for 25 years and have turned into a wildlife area.

“I love to be with my friends. I love to be out there with my dog. I love to be stomping around on my property to see how it’s doing. If I see some birds, that’s just a bonus. I don’t hunt, but I love to see the pheasant and quail.”

The playas on Terry’s property are not the only ones in the area. In the two miles between his property and the highway, there are several other playas owned by his neighbors — some that are farmed and some in a wetlands program.

“Our playas are a continuation of those other wetlands in the area. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. We have geese and ducks coming in to use the playas. I’ve got one neighbor who’s a big duck hunter, and he’s pretty giddy about attracting more waterfowl.”

Although Terry no longer hunts, he says some of his fondest memories are hunting with his father. And now, his brother has taken up hunting with his son. For Terry, and many others, hunting is about so much more than hunting; it encompasses an appreciation for wildlife and the land and provides an avenue for being with family and building memories. By enrolling his playas in a permanent Wetlands Reserve Easement, he is creating a place where that can continue for generations to come.

“I’ve been happy with the Wetlands Reserve Easement enrollment process. I’ve felt for years that the wildlife we have in Kansas is one of our most natural resources, and we haven’t even scratched the surface of what we can do with that resource. My vision for these playas is to make them better for the wildlife, and I’m excited about it!”