In the United States, grazing lands declined from 587.2 million in 2007 to 584.8 million acres in 2017 (USDANRCS, 2021). During the same period, U.S. croplands increased from 358.9 million to 367.5 million acres, mainly from expiring Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land and grassland conversion. From 2008 through 2016, 88% of expanded croplands in the United States were originally grasslands, and nearly 70% of expanded croplands generated yields below the national average (Lark et al., 2020). Located at the western margin of the Corn Belt, South Dakota (SD) had been a hotspot of conversion from grassland to cropland (GTC). As the Corn Belt expands westward, about one-fifth of SD grasslands were converted to cropland between 1980 and 2000; this conversion accelerated between 2006 and 2011 (Wright and Wimberly, 2013; Greer, Bakker, and Dieter, 2016).