Despite continued fire management in the Flint Hills, the region is currently experiencing unprecedented pressure from woody plant encroachment. Problematic and invasive woody plants have increased in and around the Flint Hills, thereby increasing the region’s exposure to seed contamination and risk of grassland conversion. Grassland conversion to woody plant dominance is associated with severe consequences to the goods and services provides by grasslands. Rangeland production losses to woody plant encroachment is one of the most well studied impacts of encroachment. Left unchecked, woody encroachment can decrease rangeland production by 75%. This brief article by Dillon Fogarty, UNL, summarizes the production losses seen in Kansas, including county specific forage loss estimates . READ MORE