I don't know the specific species, just that most of the eastern plains including Pawnee were denuded during the Dust Bowl and a funny kind of curly grass was imported from Russia during the early 30's. It was a WPA or CCC project. Almost 100% of what we consider grazing land around there was plowed up for dryland wheat farming between 1900 and 1920-something so there was tremendous loss of topsoil during the Dust Bowl. Apparently this Russian grass propagates rapidly and is far less susceptible to wind. Of course the original short-grass prairie grasses were too, but apparently there wasn't enough of it left by 1930 to provide seedstock.

Where did you get all that? 8)

I don't have the link handy, but I found it via Google a few years ago in a history of the Pawnee Grasslands.

It is Turf Alive III sold by Lawns Alive. 🙂
I keep it in the motor home and every time we get lots of rain, I spred it all over around the north site flight line. Learned this trick from the astronomy club. 😀

Edward, these guys are good with native grass seeds ://www.sharpseed.com/

Greetings from PERU. Stuck in the Lima, Peru airport.

Warren, that soil has never been tilled and the grasses are largely native. There is some invasion from noxious weeds, but like the Sandhills of Nerbraska that is mostly native grass. There is no topsoil there because it never existed there - at least not for hundreds of centuries. CSU can confirm this. That land is almost 100 percent unbroken.

Like I said, I read it in an article that specifically mentioned Grover and Keota area and Pawnee National Grasslands in specific as having been seeded with a type of Russian-originated grass that grows close to the ground in a curly fashion. I defer to your far greater depth in all thing agricultural.

No doubt, some of the prairie has been chopped up. It is easy to spot if you know what to look for, as "disturbed" soils stay messed up for quite a while. My point was that the specific site where we fly is native. You sure don't have to go far to see havoc, though. 'tis very sad as much of that terrain was never even remotely sort of arable..... And prorbably never will be.

Here is a bit of trivia: a acre of topsoil the thickness of a dime weighs a ton (literally). It doesn't take much erosion to lose a LOT of soil! The soils in that area are pretty poor! And the lack of moisture sort of makes farming impossible.....