Using Molasses as an Attractant for Concentrating Grazing on Medusahead

View the project final report

Commodities

• Animals: sheep

Practices

• Animal Production: feed/forage, feed additives, free-range
• Education and Training: demonstration, extension, farmer to farmer, on-farm/ranch research, participatory research
• Pest Management: biological control, field monitoring/scouting, physical control

Medusahead, an invasive noxious annual plant from Eurasia, infests 5 million acres of California rangeland and millions more in other Western states. Severe medusahead invasions can reduce grazing value by $20 an acre each year, reduce recreational value and cause extremely low biodiversity. A team of University of California researchers addressing medusahead control has found that control can be achieved with high density grazing. The project will test the method of focusing a high density of sheep on medusahead infestations without the expense of building fences. It will test this by spraying varying concentrations of a molasses and water mixture directly on the medusahead during the plant boot stage to entice sheep to graze it. Project coordinator Morgan Doran, working on the ranch of Jim Yeager of Putah Creek Dorsets, will measure the shifts in botanical composition, forage utilization and nutritional quality from the sheep grazing.