Episode
Prairie islands are popping up in a sea of corn and soybeans
- Podcast
- Up From Dust
- Published
- Oct 6, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 1722
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/up-from-dust-6861514/episodes/prairie-islands-are-popping-up-in-a-sea-of-corn-and-soybeans/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/up-from-dust-6861514/prairie-islands-are-popping-up-in-a-sea-of-corn-and-soybeans.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
The Midwest has a reputation for vast fields of corn and soybeans that stretch to the horizon. But on some farms, strips of wildflowers and little bluestem now interrupt the crops, tiny glimpses of the prairie that once dominated the region. They’re an effort to hold back the fertilizer runoff that pollutes drinking water and then travels hundreds of miles downstream, where it fuels the Gulf of Mexico’s infamous Dead Zone.