Have you ever spotted tractors in the middle of the Platte River? Strange sight, right? Tractors belong in cornfields, not wading chest deep in water. From the road, it looks like they are taking an unlikely swim, but if you watch closely, you will see them grinding across sandbars, their disks cutting down towering stands of vegetation. The engines roar, water splashes, and the question hangs in your mind: what on earth are they doing out here?
Do not worry, the tractors have not lost their way. Our John Deere RT 8320 and 8RT 310 on tracks are exactly where they are supposed to be. Equipment Operator Gary Sitzman and Range Technician Ben Jones take on this daunting task each fall. The goal is to disk as many miles of river in the eighty mile stretch between Chapman and Overton, Nebraska as possible before the river freezes. Each day brings long hours and new challenges. As you can imagine, going over thousands of sandbars twice puts our equipment to the test. Disks wear out, wheel bearings fail, and sometimes tractors get stuck.
Like really stuck…
Still, Gary and Ben press on. And in return, the Central Platte River Valley provides a front row seat to fall wildlife. They have observed softshell turtles slip into the water, whitetail deer bounding across channels, migratory birds gathering in shallow waters, and countless other species using the river corridor.
While their work may look disruptive, it actually helps the Platte River resemble its historic state: open sandbars, a wide shallow channel, and flowing sediments. Historically, spring floods and ice jams scoured vegetation from sandbars and kept the river wide and braided. Today, flows are reduced and high flow events are less frequent and less intense due to dams, irrigation, and groundwater pumping. Without intervention, woody vegetation and invasive plants stabilize sandbars, narrow the channel, and reduce habitat quality for wildlife.
Photo by Emma Richards, Lila O. Wilson Biological Monitoring Fellow
Disking helps mimic those historic forces. By removing vegetation and keeping sediments moving, this management restores the wide open channels needed by migratory birds. Sandhill Cranes, for example, need shallow vegetation free waters to rest safely at night and wide views to detect predators by day. Whooping Cranes, with over half of the entire population stopping in the Central Platte each spring, rely on the same habitat. Without active management, this habitat would disappear.
The Platte River once measured nearly a mile wide in places, but today many stretches are less than one hundred yards across. To counteract that loss, the Crane Trust prioritizes disking at key roosting sites identified through decades of research. This effort ensures the Platte remains one of the most critical stopovers on the Central Flyway, hosting one and a half million Sandhill Cranes each March, hundreds of endangered Whooping Cranes, and countless other migratory birds.
A few weeks ago, Laura Farms and her husband Grant Wilson (left) joined us on the river to see this work firsthand and filmed a great video about the process. I highly recommend checking it out through this link > TOTAL Destruction By Tractor With Tracks
Until the next blog,
Matt Urbanski
Marketing Coordinator
murbanski@cranetrust.org