A few scattered trees might not look like a crisis. But give them time.
Across the Great Plains, eastern redcedar, mesquite and other woody plants are steadily taking over open grasslands — reducing forage, competing for water, increasing wildfire risk, and making working lands harder to manage. The best time to act is early.
“We wanted to understand what was keeping landowners from conducting management, what motivated them to act and what conservation professionals could do to better support them… and to make sure those findings didn’t just sit in a report.”
So how do we help landowners act before a few trees become a much bigger problem?
In 2022, that question helped launch a Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) focused on woody plant encroachment in Kansas and Oklahoma. PLJV and its partners used social science to better understand what motivates landowners, what keeps them from taking action, who they trust, and what messages actually resonate.
Those findings were then turned into practical communications products and outreach tools designed to help conservation professionals have more effective conversations with producers — and ultimately became the foundation for the next phase in Texas. In this issue, find out what was learned and how partners are putting it into practice.
Expanding the Work to Texas
The need to get ahead of woody plant encroachment is significant. In 2022 alone, Texas lost more than 5.6 million tons of forage to invasive woody plants, compared with 3.6 million tons in Oklahoma and nearly 1 million tons in Kansas.
Building on the social science work and communications products developed for Kansas and Oklahoma, PLJV collaborated with Rio Grande and Oaks and Prairie Joint Ventures to expand this approach to Texas through a new USDA NRCS-supported project that began in 2024.
But Texas wasn’t treated as simply an extension of the earlier work.
PLJV conducted focus groups, interviews and online surveys with ranchers and landowners across four of Texas NRCS’s five administrative zones to better understand the state’s unique brush management challenges, motivations and opportunities.
From Research to Real Conversations
What PLJV heard directly from Texas landowners was then used to develop and test state-specific messages and create resources conservation professionals can use when talking with producers about brush management.
Together, the work in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas is building a model that connects social science, communications and conservation delivery, using what landowners say to help shape how conservation professionals reach them.
With years of research and lessons from Kansas and Oklahoma in hand, Texas offered the opportunity to find out how those lessons translated to a different landscape and more importantly to different landowners. PLJV staff didn’t assume the answers would be the same. The team went back to the source, talking directly with Texas ranchers and landowners about how they viewed woody plants, what influenced their management decisions and what kind of information could actually help them take action.
Listening Before Creating
PLJV Social Science Specialist Ryan Roberts said a listen-first approach has been central to the work from the beginning.
“Social science helped us move beyond assumptions. Instead of developing outreach based only on what we thought landowners needed to hear, we could build it around what they told us was important to them.”
“We wanted to understand what was keeping landowners from conducting management, what motivated them to act and what conservation professionals could do to better support them,” Roberts said. “Then we wanted to make sure those findings didn’t just sit in a report. They needed to become practical tools people could use.”
During the interviews, focus groups and online survey, some of what they heard echoed the earlier work in Kansas and Oklahoma. Cost, ongoing maintenance and prescribed fire continued to influence management decisions.
But Texas also brought important differences.
“Brush management,” for example, was often more familiar to Texas landowners than “woody plant management.” Landowners also made it clear that successful management didn’t necessarily mean removing every tree or shrub.
Some woody plants provide value for livestock, wildlife, hunting or recreation. What one landowner considers a problem may be something another intentionally wants on the landscape.
“Social science helped us move beyond assumptions,” PLJV Marketing Manager Maria Regueiro said. “Instead of developing outreach based only on what we thought landowners needed to hear, we could build it around what they told us was important to them.”
Those differences matter because there isn’t one message that will motivate every landowner.
A rancher concerned about losing forage may need a different conversation than someone focused on wildlife habitat. Someone dealing with a few scattered trees is in a very different position than a landowner facing hundreds of heavily encroached acres.
The research gave PLJV a clearer picture of those differences and the information needed to turn them into something conservation professionals could use.
Turning What We Heard Into Tools
The goal wasn’t another report sitting on a shelf. It was to turn what landowners said into practical resources for the people working with them.
The Texas project built on products already developed through the Kansas and Oklahoma work, including social science reports, communication guides, communications toolkit, and a website for landowners. Together, those earlier products translated the social science results into communication tips, practical messaging, sample questions, postcards, handouts, advertisements, social media materials and other resources partners could use or customize.
Texas followed that same research-to-resource approach, but this time the materials reflected the language, priorities and perspectives heard directly from Texas landowners.
From Tools to Training
During July and August 2026, PLJV held several trainings across Texas for conservation professionals who help landowners manage brush. The sessions were designed to take years of social science research off the page and put it into real-world conversations.
“This training was nothing like I expected and ten times better than anything I could have imagined.”
Participants worked through scenarios involving different landowners, property conditions and management goals. They practiced identifying what might motivate someone to act, what barriers could be standing in the way and how their approach might need to change from one landowner to another.
The idea was simple: good outreach isn’t about finding one perfect message. It’s about listening well enough to know which conversation to have.
For some attendees, the approach changed the way they thought about conservation outreach altogether. “This training was nothing like I expected and ten times better than anything I could have imagined,” one NRCS district conservationist said.
A grazing land specialist went even further: “This sort of training should be mandatory for all new hires.”
Those reactions show how far the work has come.
What began with listening to landowners became communications tools and products and made its way back to the conservation professionals sitting across the table from landowners every day.
Conservation professionals already bring the technical expertise. Social science and communications add another tool — a better understanding of the person making the decision — because getting ahead of woody plant encroachment doesn’t always begin with a management practice. Sometimes, it begins with the right conversation at the right time.