Restoring Rangeland Quality with Soil Health Enhancement

Project Overview

OW16-038
Project Type: Professional + Producer
Funds awarded in 2016: $44,450.00
Projected End Date: 01/15/2019
Grant Recipient: Crooked River Weed Management Area
Region: Western
State: Oregon
Principal Investigator:
Debbie Wood
Crooked River Weed Management Area

Annual Reports

Commodities

  • Additional Plants: native plants
  • Animals: bovine

Practices

  • Animal Production: range improvement
  • Education and Training: on-farm/ranch research
  • Natural Resources/Environment: habitat enhancement
  • Pest Management: biological control, prevention, weed ecology
  • Soil Management: soil microbiology
  • Sustainable Communities: sustainability measures

    Proposal abstract:

    When it comes to management options and land objectives for medusahead rye (Taeniatherum caput-medusae) and cheatgrass (downy brome, Bromus tectorum) landowners tend to look at prevention, control, and revegetation. A successful approach for producers is to manage invasive grasses in a particular area with these three primary goals in mind. With our “Restoring Rangeland Quality with Soil Health Enhancement” project we have defined a particular geographic region in which all landowners and managers have a common interest in controlling existing populations and the future spread of medusahead rye and cheatgrass, which continue to invade the entire landscape. This project is an integrated ongoing effort in the Paulina, Oregon area to address medusahead rye in sage-grouse habitat. Landowners have been working with Crook County Soil and Water Conservation District, Crooked River Weed Management Area, and the Natural Resource Conservation Service with OWEB and federal funding to help control this aggressive, annual invader. The project’s goal to restore rangeland health and function for the Greater Sage-grouse coincides with restoring mule deer habitat and most importantly, increasing livestock forage production. Dryland forage is essential for this ranching community as cattle use rangeland for grazing most of the year. This collaborative effort will evaluate and demonstrate the effective use of soil enhancing bacterium, a new and ground-breaking technology for inhibiting growth on medusahead rye and cheatgrass. These weed- suppressive bacteria are selective and ecologically safe, field tested to assist with present restoration efforts within the project boundaries. The bacterium allows desired native species to be more competitive in the plant community where they can reseed and encourage plant diversity. By using the bacteria on annual grasses over three years at seven different locations on 3000 acres total, we will be able to compare soil characteristics relating to bacterium treatments to aid in the development of best management guidelines for producers. These field demonstration plots on private ranchlands will compare single application of soil enhancing bacteria coated on native seed or sprayed on the soil surface with and without herbicide.  Each field plots will have a control area within them to compare the effectiveness of soil bacteria. As a group monitoring will be done and data analysis will reveal the impact of the bacterial treatments on annual grasses and desired species plant growth, the relationship among these data and other variables such as location, soil characteristics, and climate. Cost analysis between historic herbicide treatments verses the use of bacteria will be a factor for outreach and education to producers. Outreach to local landowners and land managers will be conducted by annual workshops, meetings, and field days to inform them of project monitoring and outcome. As an educational objective, the entire group will meet several times a year with other producers in the community and land managers to provide updated information about the project. We will conduct field tours in the spring and summer each year and participate in a winter/early spring workshop. Each producer and collaborator will have in-depth analysis of rangeland health from their own ranches and an action plan to treat issues that may occur.  We have several producer educational objectives, which will include handouts, PowerPoint presentations, factsheets, articles in local newspaper, YouTube videos, and posts on Facebook. Results of this project will be useful to agricultural/ rangeland managers and those that work with producers. We will distribute our results to NRCS, BLM, ODFW, Ochoco Forest Service, Crook County Extension Service, Oregon Cattlemens Association, Crook County Stock Growers, SWCD, PNW Society for Range Management, and any others in the profession.  Producers in this area want to reduce the spread of annual grasses (cheatgrass and medusahead rye), especially medusahead rye. Landowners are excited and interested in the soil enhancing bacteria to suppress annual grasses and be used as a new innovative tool to control annual grasses. As a group we hope other producers will adopt the use of soil bacteria as a best management practices to control annual invasive grasses.

    Project objectives from proposal:

    Objectives / Performance Targets:

    1. To evaluate and demonstrate the use of soil enhancement bacteria in rangeland in Crook County.
    2. To restore rangeland health by reducing annual invasive grasses and increasing native grass production.
    3. To inform producers in the community and land managers with a cost analysis of management options on rangeland for long-term production.

     

    The project’s goal to restore rangeland health and function for the Greater Sage-grouse coincides with restoring mule deer habitat and most importantly, increasing livestock forage production. Dryland forage is essential for this ranching community as cattle use rangeland for grazing most of the year. This collaborative effort will evaluate and demonstrate the effective use of soil enhancing bacterium, a new and ground-breaking technology for inhibiting growth on medusahead rye and cheatgrass. These weed- suppressive bacteria are selective and ecologically safe, field tested to assist with present restoration efforts within the project boundaries. The bacterium allows desired native species to be more competitive in the plant community where they can reseed and encourage plant diversity.

     

    Outreach to local landowners and land managers will be conducted by annual workshops, meetings, and field days to inform them of project monitoring and outcome for long-term production. As an educational objective, the entire group will meet several times a year with other producers in the community and land managers to provide updated information about the project. We will conduct field tours in the spring and summer each year and participate in a winter/early spring workshop. Each producer and collaborator will have in-depth analysis of rangeland health from their own ranches and an action plan to treat issues that may occur.  We have several producer educational objectives, which will include handouts, PowerPoint presentations, factsheets, articles in local newspaper, YouTube videos, and posts on Facebook.

    Timeline

     

    Year 1

    Year 1

    Year 1

    Year 1

    Year 2

    Year 2

    Year 2

    Year 2

    Year 3

    Year 3

    Year 3

    Year 3

    Activity

     

    Feb 2016

    April 2016

    Aug 2016

    Oct 2016

    Feb 2017

    April 2017

    Aug 2017

    Oct 2017

    Feb 2018

    April 2018

    Aug 2018

    Oct 2018

    Objective 1

                           

    Locate field areas sites

    X

    X

                       

    Establish field sites

       

    X

         

    X

         

    X

     

    Field plant density count

     

    X

         

    X

         

    X

       

    Field observations

     

    X

    X

    X

     

    X

    X

    X

     

    X

    X

    X

    Objective 2

                           

    Analyze data

           

    X

    X

       

    X

    X

       

    Semi and Annual reports

       

    X

     

    X

     

    X

     

    X

     

    X

     

    Objective 3

                           

    Outreach- meetings, field days, and workshops

    X

     

    X

    X

    X

    X

    X

    X

    X

    X

    X

    X

    Reporting- fact sheets, presentations, articles, and social media

    X

    X

     

    X

    X

    X

     

    X

    X

    X

     

    X

    Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or SARE.