Lawrence residents Jim and Cindy Haines gave 165 acres of woodlands and pasture in Douglas County to The Land Institute on Friday.

The Land Institute, a Salina-based environmentalist agriculture group, will use the newly acquired land for research in ecology and plant genetics.

The tract, west of Lawrence, will join 65 acres gifted by the Haineses in July. Known as the Gorrill Farmstead, that tract included 50 acres of farmland and a 3,000-square-foot stone-built home listed on the Register of Historic Kansas Places.

Wes Jackson, president of The Land Institute, said the organization’s presence in Douglas County will strengthen its ties with Kansas University.

The Land Institute is in the process of forming a research consortium with KU, Kansas State University and the Konza Prairie. As part of this initiative, the organization began a partnership with the Environmental Studies Program at KU in 2013 to encourage research in the development of perennial polycultures, which are mixtures of perennial grains growing together without tilling, applications of chemicals or loss of soil.