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Student Life 2010: Another Summer at the Barta Brothers Ranch

The Barta Brothers Ranch Research Facility is 6,000 acres covering two counties in the Nebraska Sand Hills. At the building on-site, offices, a living room, kitchen and dormitory space accommodate dozens of researchers and students for the summer.

Driving big trucks, tearing around on ATVs, walking the Sand Hills in all weather conditions, and doing it all in the name of research -- it’s just another summer at the Barta Brothers Ranch.

A long way from Lincoln, 20 miles south of Long Pine in Rock and Brown counties, students and researchers are in the middle of their field season at the BBR, a 6,000-acre property donated to the University by Clifford and James Barta in 1996.

Utilized by scientists, extension educators, students and ranchers, the site has been host to many research studies. These have included work on grazing systems, ecology of the Sand Hills, and for the past two summers, major research on prairie chickens.

This summer, undergraduates from the School of Natural Resources – Jessica Edgar (Fisheries and Wildlife) and Ben Beckman (Grasslands Ecology and Management) – are working with graduate student Lars Anderson to determine habitat preference for the native grasslands bird.

Edgar tracks hens using radio telemetry and GPS to determine where they nest and raise their brood. Beckman then gathers data on the surrounding vegetation . Anderson, advised by Larkin Powell and Walter Schacht, hopes the research will provide information to private landowners about how to manage grasslands for Prairie Chicken habitat.

Learn more about the Barta Brothers Ranch at Off-campus field site section of the SNR website.

Photo Essay by Kat Shiffler, School of Natural Resources, kshiffler2@unlnotes.unl.edu

The Sand Hills are a beautiful backdrop to a summer of field research. Jess listens to the radio transmitter to determine which direction the signal is coming from. Students put radio collars on the hens in the early spring so that they can be tracked all summer as their eggs hatch. Senior Fisheries and Wildlife major Jessica Edgar uses radio telemetry to track prairie chicken hens and their broods. Many of the sites she monitors are on private ranch land. She travels the hilly landscape using a truck, then an ATV, and often walks miles on foot. With detailed notes and pictures, Ben catalogs the vegetation at each site. The information will be used to determine the prairie chicken's preferred habitat, a potential resource for private landowners who hope to manage for and attract the native bird to their land. Jess uses GPS to keep track of the location of each hen and her brood. Ben Beckman, senior Grasslands Ecology and Management major, is in charge of vegetation sampling in the areas where prairie chickens have been found with their broods. He documents each site with multiple photos.