The roar of machinery and crunch of crushed vegetation were in the air at Long Point Wildlife Refuge in West Tisbury this week, marking the beginning of a pair of state-funded projects to restore rare Island sandplain grasslands.

The preservation of rare sandplain grasslands at Katama and in West Tisbury will get a boost thanks to some $46,000 in grant money awarded by Gov. Charlie Baker last week to the Trustees of Reservations.

Sandplain grasslands are extensive on the Cape and Islands and include a variety of grasses, wildflowers and shrubs. But it is the native grass little bluestem that creates the ochre hues in fall, and helps sustain the diversity of the grassland ecosystem.

Ending months of speculation and more than a decade of bitter warring over development plans - both in and out of court - the 215-acre, ecologically rare Herring Creek Farm in Edgartown was sold this week for a record $64 Million.

The new owners of the storied Great Plains farm include The Nature Conservancy, the FARM Institute and three private buyers.

Ever since cultivation began on the Vineyard, farmers have tried to enrich the nutrient-poor soils of the Island's sandplain grassland. Now scientists are beginning a five-year experiment on the Island trying to achieve the exact opposite.

At a cost of some $700,000, The Nature Conservancy and Marine Biological Laboratory will try various ways of de-enriching the soil on 70 acres of sandplain at Katama, with an eye toward reestablishing the grassland ecosystem which formerly existed there.

A longstanding and unprecedented gift of 156 acres at Quansoo Farm in Chilmark from the late Florence (Flipper) Harris to the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation is now complete, leaders at the foundation announced this week.

Donated to Sheriff’s Meadow by Mrs. Harris over a period of years beginning more than a quarter century ago, the Quansoo Farm gift is the second largest land bequest in the history of Sheriff’s Meadow.