How Russian Thistle Took Over the American West and Won’t Let Go

Picture the classic Western movie showdown. Two gunslingers face off on a dusty street, and a lone tumbleweed rolls between them. It’s one of the most recognizable images of the American frontier. But tumbleweeds on the Great Plains are doing a lot more than setting the mood for Hollywood. Across western Kansas and surrounding states, these rolling weeds are piling against homes, draining water from farmland, and creating real fire hazards that keep local officials busy year-round.

• Tumbleweeds, also known as Russian thistle, are native to Russia and eastern Europe and arrived in the U.S. during the 1870s as stowaways hidden in imported crop seeds.
• A single tumbleweed can scatter upwards of 10,000 seeds as it rolls across the flat terrain of western Kansas.
• Tumbleweeds pose a real fire risk because they can ignite and then be blown to new locations, spreading wildfires across the region.

An Accidental Invasion That Started With Wheat

You’d think something so tied to cowboy culture would have been here forever. But tumbleweeds are actually a fairly new arrival on the Plains, and they weren’t even established in the U.S. during the early days of the cowboy.

The plant is native to Russia and eastern Europe. In the 1870s, immigrants from that part of the world arrived in western Kansas and surrounding states, bringing flaxseed and hard red winter wheat with them. That wheat later became Kansas’ claim to fame and a major part of the state’s economy.

Those grains took well to Kansas prairie soil, but the crop seeds also came with a hitchhiker: seeds of the Russian thistle. The plant’s first known appearance in North America was in Bonhomme County, South Dakota, in the 1870s. From there, the Russian thistle found wide-open ground perfectly suited for rapid spread. It’s an expert at taking over loose, disturbed soil with little competing vegetation, which is exactly what it found in the ploughed land of the Great Plains. As pioneer farmers cut down prairie grasses to make room for crops, they created the perfect conditions for the weed to take root and spread fast.

A Weed That Drinks Your Crops Dry

For farmers, tumbleweeds aren’t some charming piece of Western lore. They’re a constant headache. A single Russian thistle plant can soak up 44 gallons of water, and that has a direct effect on the yield of crops like corn or milo the following year. When the weeds spread, a farmer’s crops end up competing for already limited water.

They’re so well adapted to the High Plains that they keep Kansas State University weed scientist Patrick Geier pretty busy. They do well in dry conditions with little moisture. If there’s an empty patch of ground, these plants will find it and fill it.

And the way they spread is wildly effective. Tumbling across flat terrain is actually the plant’s dispersal strategy. As it rolls, upwards of 10,000 seeds shake loose and sprout new tumbleweeds. Some plants can produce up to 250,000 seeds depending on their size. That’s a staggering reproduction rate that explains why they’re so hard to contain.

Tumbleweeds were also the first documented case of herbicide resistance in Kansas, according to Kansas State University, making them even harder for landowners to control.

Fire Hazards and Buried Neighborhoods

Away from the fields, tumbleweeds cause serious problems in towns across western Kansas. Residents tell stories, with both annoyance and amazement, of tumbleweeds blocking their driveways or stacking against their homes. In some areas, walls of tumbleweeds have reached over six feet tall.

Tumbleweeds can be a big factor in wildfires. After a wet fall, they grow and spread quickly. Then they dry out just in time for wildfire season in late winter and early spring. Kole Johnson of the National Weather Service in Dodge City said his agency works with fire officials to monitor the buildup of dry fuels, including weeds.

With tumbleweeds flying around and stacking up on each other, they can cause real fire hazards because their tumbling nature makes for quick-moving kindling. Kelly Kirk, the fire chief in Liberal, Kansas, says the ironic solution to preventing the fire risk is to burn the tumbleweeds safely before they become an uncontrolled threat.

Some years when tumbleweeds get particularly bad, the city loans out special “burn dumpsters,” which are dumpsters on trailers designed for weed disposal.

Still Part of Growing Up on the Plains

Despite all the trouble they cause, tumbleweeds have woven themselves into the culture of the Great Plains. Even though they have a real effect on western Kansans, the tumbleweeds are still culturally accepted. They’re sometimes used as decorations, sold as small town souvenirs, or simply considered part of everyday life.

Geier acknowledges that despite all the hassles, tumbleweeds have also helped some native species. They create habitats for certain bird species and produce food for wildlife. So while they’re a massive nuisance for farmers and fire departments alike, they’ve also become a small piece of the local ecology in a region they weren’t originally meant to call home.

Russian thistle arrived on the American prairie by accident about 150 years ago. It found open, dry country that felt a lot like the steppes it came from. And since then, it has been rolling, spreading, and stubbornly refusing to leave. Love them or hate them, tumbleweeds are as much a part of modern Kansas as the wheat fields they hitchhiked in with.