Restoring Native Texas Landscapes

The Freeman Center fights invasive plants to rebalance the range. 

Chris Thomas peers out over a 100-foot limestone bluff at the Freeman Center and envisions turning back the hands of time on the rolling terrain below. As director of the 3,500-acre ranch, Thomas is spearheading efforts to restore the oak savanna that characterized this part of the Hill Country before settlers arrived in the 1800s.

“We’re stewards of this land, so we should be taking care of it the right way,” Thomas says. “Our soil is heavily degraded from misuse over a hundred years. And when I say misuse, the education wasn’t there yet, people didn’t understand it. We have a plan for 1,000 acres of the ranch to be underneath a restorative agriculture model where we’re adding amendments to bring the soil back to where it should be.”

Chris Thomas

Thomas has been working for a decade to clear invasive underbrush and allow native grasses to thrive in park-like savannas with scattered motts of live oak trees. He and his team have treated about half of their 1,000-acre goal. With bulldozers, mulchers, and herbicides, they’re conducting maintenance that Mother Nature once handled with fire.

“Back in earlier days, you had fire started by lightning, and it would roll through and burn thousands and thousands of acres,” Thomas says. “When the fire would roll through here, it’d burn all that brush, but the oak trees could withstand it.”

As civilization took root, farmers and ranchers suppressed fires—understandably—to protect their lives and property. But they also inadvertently removed the positive effects of fires, which rejuvenate grasslands and forests by cleaning out dead organic materials and releasing nutrients into the soil. Ironically, fire suppression has also led to more intense wildfires, fueled by the buildup of brush and dried debris.

“When I started this in 2016, we met with Hays County Fire Department and they showed us a heat map of the county’s biggest fire dangers,” Thomas says. “And [Freeman Center] was definitely one of them because of how much brush and everything we had out here.”  

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Rebalancing the Range

Chris Thomas, Freeman Center’s executive director, explains the ranch’s efforts to restore native landscapes.

Adding to the degradation of rangelands across Central Texas, many ranchers overgrazed their ranches, meaning they let livestock eat grass and forage without allowing it time to grow back. Overgrazing damages the plant and soil health, and it increases the land’s vulnerability to flash flooding and drought.  

“You can look at some interesting pictures of where it went from waist-high grass everywhere to just beat up with exposed rock,” Thomas says. “If you have a bunch of bare ground, then when it rains the water runs down to the low spot. But when we have this grass that we’re growing back, when we get these quarter- or half-inch rains, the water settles and goes into the soil.”  

To help improve the soil, Thomas is working with Dr. Nicole Wagner, associate professor of soil and crop science, to find the best mix of soil amendments to distribute across the land. He’s also studying how to optimize the Freeman herd’s grazing patterns. In the future, Thomas plans to employ a virtual fencing system with programmable shock collars that enable land managers to set specific boundaries for cattle. When managed correctly, cattle can help keep the oak savanna ecosystem in balance.

“With adaptive management grazing, when you’re moving the animals more to mimic wild herds and graze more aggressively in a smaller area, they stimulate the plants to grow roots more rapidly,” Wagner explains. “And then the roots feed the microbiome and develop the soil.”  

Thomas’s ultimate goal is to bring back fire to the Freeman Center in the form of controlled burns. He predicts it will take another five years to prepare for controlled burning. To get ready, he and his crew are mechanically clearing brush, burning the brush piles, and creating fire breaks—similar to dirt roads—around the pastures to help keep fires in check. Another critical component, Thomas says, will be engaging with the surrounding community to educate people about the role of fire and the ranch’s commitment to using it safely.

“We have to really do our job of getting these spaces into the right condition for burning, so that when we burn, it’s safe,” he says.  


Matt Joyce
Manager, Marketing & Communications

Matt Joyce is the editor of Hillviews and a writer and editor for TXST's Division of Marketing and Communications.