Heat waves distort Tom Peffer as he tends a prairie burn on a piece of prairie land at the home of Rich and Marion Patterson in southeast Cedar Rapids on Dec. 3. Peffer was learning how to conduct a ...

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. For more than a decade, Iowans have gathered at the Kellerton Grasslands Bird Conservation Area at ...

IPR's Talk of Iowa host Charity Nebbe speaks with Jim Pease, Pauline Drobney and Pete Eyheralde at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge on Earth Day in front of an audience. Land that was once ...

Lee Tesdell stands in a prairie strip on his farm near Slater, Iowa. He grows alfalfa and Kernza, a perennial grain, raises sheep and cash rents to a neighbor who grows corn and soybeans. Over the ...

A greater prairie chicken during its courtship at the Kellerton lek. (Photo by Lowell Washburn/DNR) For more than a decade, Iowans have gathered at the Kellerton Grasslands Bird Conservation Area at ...

Centuries ago, before Iowa's rich, black soil was converted into some of the world's most productive farmland, the state was mostly covered in tallgrass prairie and flowering plants known as forbs.

Watch a bald eagle family in its nest Decorah, Iowa, via Explore Live Nature Cams on YouTube. IRA FLATOW: This is Science Friday. I’m Ira Flatow, coming to you today from Iowa Public Radio in Ames, ...

Iowa and its economy are, quite literally, eroding. The state’s rich topsoil, which is the key to making this some of the best and most productive farmland in the world, is disappearing. It was once ...