Field Work – John Beardsley

FIELD WORK - Overview

early summer, bees in butterfly weed and black-eyed susans

Summer, black-eyed susans

Early autumn, goldenrod

Beardsley lives with his wife, Stephanie Ridder, on a farm in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Together, they have helped create a new organization, Virginia Working Landscapes, devoted to reconciling productive agriculture with biodiversity preservation and restoration. VWL, a program of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia, promotes the conservation of native biodiversity and sustainable land use through research, education, and community engagement.

For instance, they have initiated research into best practices to create and maintain biodiverse meadows; created a pilot program to pay farmers to delay haying during the breeding seasons of ground-nesting birds; encouraged summer stockpiling of pasture to decrease the need for hay production for winter livestock feeding; and cosponsored collaborative research with Virginia Tech and the University of Tennessee to develop bee-friendly grazing practices by reintroducing native wildflowers into pastures.

VWL began in 2010 in response to a strong demand from private landowners, conservation NGOs, and residents in the Virginia Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley for leadership from the Smithsonian on native plant and wildlife conservation, especially on working lands. VWL conducts innovative scientific research to inform and inspire conservation action across the region, including regenerative agricultural projects that support the recovery of declining grassland bird and pollinator communities through habitat enhancement on working farms. Inspired by their work with VWL, Beardsley and Ridder have created a 13-acre pollinator meadow on their farm in a field that was otherwise only lightly used for grazing. They have also planted an extensive riparian buffer along about half a mile of the Rappahannock River, which flows through their farm. They have welcomed researchers working on various projects, mostly pertaining to the Rappahannock watershed: one to monitor changing water temperatures; another to prospect for mussels, which turned up a population of an unusual species, the yellow lance; and a third to monitor the return of river herring after downstream dam removal. The herring were observed returning to the Rappahannock headwaters in the spring of 2022.

More on Field Work

Pollinator Meadow

In an effort to create habitat for pollinators and ground nesting birds, Beardsley and Ridder decided to transform a 13-acre pasture, replacing fescue with native warm season grasses and flowers more hospitable to grassland birds and pollinators.

Riparian Buffer

Beardsley and Ridder steward about a mile and a half of Rappahannock riverbank, some of it on both sides of the river. Much of the floodplain was cleared ages ago right to the river edge for cropland, chiefly for cattle corn production.