Riley Bishop is the 2026 winner of the Marian O. and Bertrand Schultz Scholarship award for $750. This NAS Scholarship is available to any Nebraska High School Senior with an interest in Climate and Environmental Change. Riley submitted an essay that discusses environmental changes that have taken place since the 1880's in the central great plains, with an emphasis on Nebraska. Riley is a senior at Doniphan-Trumbull public Schools, and has been accepted in the University of Nebraska and Chadron State College. Riley was able to attend the Nebraska Junior Academy of Sciences meeting to accept his Scholarship Reward on April 23rd!
Riley's Essay:
The story of Nebraska and the Great Plains is one of big changes. It's a story about how people transformed the land, invented new machines, and learned to survive tough times. Nebraska’s journey from a perceived “empty place” to the "Beef State” highlights individuals’ determination and innovation. Today, woody encroachment of Nebraska grasslands is a quiet danger creeping across our grasslands, and threatening Nebraska’s dominance as the “beef state”.
The Homestead Act of 1862 began this story. Through this act, the government offered 160 acres for $1.25/acre to settlers. This was like a starting gun for settlers racing to claim land. When they arrived in Nebraska, they found an expansive ocean of grassland. But they quickly ran into a problem. Out on the dry plains, 160 acres was not enough land to make a living by grazing cattle. So, they had to find another way. The solution was to break the sod. Using heavy plows, they turned over the tough, thick prairie. Underneath, they found incredibly fertile soil, perfect for farming. The eastern plains could grow corn, while areas west of the 100th meridian could produce wheat and milo.
By the 1920s, farming changed again with the arrival of machines. Tractors replaced teams of horses and mules. One person with a tractor could plant and harvest significantly more land than before. This was great for farmers, but it also meant even more prairie was plowed. This conversion came to a stop in the 1930s. A terrible drought hit the Plains, and without the deep roots of prairie grass, the soil blew. Huge dust storms turned the sky black. It was the Dust Bowl, or the "Dirty Thirties." This disaster taught farmers a hard lesson about caring for the land. To stop the wind, landowners started planting windbreaks. These trees protected the fields/soil, farm animals, and farmsteads from the wind.
The Dust Bowl also led to another big idea: “irrigation”. In the 1950s, center pivot irrigation was invented. It allowed farmers to water huge circles of crops, so they didn't have to rely on rain. By the 1960s, machines and irrigation had transformed the landscape. Most of the best farmland was in production in the 1980s. The Nebraska Department of Agriculture 2025 report highlights 22 million acres of cropland and 22 million acres of rangeland. This balance supports Nebraska’s identity as the beef state. The grasslands are managed by Nebraska’s ranchers with cow-calf herds that raise the steers that are shipped to the feedyards to be finished on a diet of corn and other grain produced by Nebraska’s farmers. This symbiotic relationship requires the balance of both healthy cropland and rangeland.
Unfortunately, Nebraska’s grasslands are being degraded by woody species encroachment, primarily Eastern Red Cedar. The pioneers who traveled the Oregon Trail through Nebraska described an empty place with no trees. Most of the Nebraska settlers were of European descent (Germany, Czechoslovakia, Sweden). These immigrants missed the trees and forests. To recreate the “homeland,” millions of trees were planted on the lands they settled. To celebrate this tradition, Arbor Day was started in Nebraska City in 1872. Planting trees was celebrated as a conservation success. These trees did mitigate wind erosion, but there can be too much of a good thing.
Eastern Red Cedar was the tree of choice. It is a hardy, fast-growing, robust tree that can block wind and provide protection from the elements. Unfortunately, it’s now taking over Nebraska’s grasslands. This tree is native to Nebraska but was confined to steep drainages and outcrops that were protected from wildfires. As this landscape was settled, wildfires were controlled to reduce property damage, and millions of cedars were planted, creating a significant seed source. A single mature female cedar tree can produce 1.5 million seeds a year. Birds and wind spread these seeds across the grasslands. Cedar encroachment does not occur in blocks of trees, but rather, individual trees become established, creating an isolated seed source. This initial infestation is often overlooked until > 5 adult trees per acre. At this point, the seed source will facilitate exponential invasion in the invaded pasture and adjacent grasslands.
Nebraska’s ranchers are watching the green cancer of cedar invasion impact their lands. In just two generations, a paddock can go from open grassland to heavily invaded. At the same time, these individuals watch ranch profitability decline as forage becomes limited for their livestock. For "the beef state," this is a very serious threat to our economy and our way of life.
Woody encroachment is not just bad for Nebraska’s ranchers; it is negatively impacting key wildlife species. Cornell University highlighted that grassland breeding bird population numbers have fallen by 53% since 1970, the steepest decline of all breeding species groups. This was alarming to me, as this work highlighted that during my dad’s lifetime, Nebraska’s state bird - Western Meadowlark - had decreased by 25%. This means there are 1 out of 4 less of these charismatic birds singing on the fence posts for me compared to my dad in his youth.
The good news for Nebraska’s ranchers and wildlife is that there are solutions. I was fortunate to intern with Lower Loup Natural Resources District and Natural Resources Conservation Service last summer. I was mentored by a Resource Conservationist with a passion for range management and working with producers to maximize forage production and wildlife habitat. Through this mentoring, I was able to participate in development of grassland conservation contracts that incorporated mechanically cutting cedars, modifying grazing infrastructure, and planning for prescribed fire to maximize production and wildlife habitat on these tracts.
Nebraska is 97% privately owned. I look forward to working with landowners to write the next chapter of land use and grassland habitat in Nebraska’s portion of the Great Plains. I want to help landowners safely use prescribed fire, implement prescribed grazing plans, and install necessary infrastructure to restore and enhance Nebraska's 22 million acres of grassland for cattle production and wildlife for future generations.