Keyword: grazing

Pollinators of the Great Plains: Disturbances, stressors, management, and research needs

Recent global declines of pollinator populations have highlighted the importance of pollinators, which are undervalued despite essential contributions to ecosystem services. To identify critical knowledge gaps about pollinators, we describe the state of knowledge about responses of pollinators and their foraging and nesting resources to historical natural disturbances and new stressors in Great Plains grasslands and riparian ecosystems.

Private ranchlands and public land grazing in the southern Rocky Mountains

In the western United States, Euro-American settlement was concentrated on the most fertile, best-watered, and most desirable sites, while the unsettled mountains and deserts remained in the public domain. As a result, the public and private halves of the western landscape are not interchangeable for conservation purposes.

Abundance of non-breeding horned larks and chestnut-collared longspurs on grazed and rested semiarid grassland

We counted birds monthly from October through April of 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 on regularly grazed and rested (since 1973) semiarid grassland of central New Mexico. Horned larks (Eremophila alpestris) and chestnut-collared longspurs (Calcarius ornatus) accounted for 66% and 10% of all birds detected, respectively. We examined variation in counts of these species relative to grazing history, site, and vegetation characteristics.

Notes from the Manitou Experimental Forest

The Manitou Experimental Forest is a branch of the Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. It is in the Pike National Forest, 28 miles north and west of Colorado Springs. This experimental area of 26 square miles was established in 1936 to study problems of watershed management, grazing, and other kinds of land use in the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies.

Grass - the West’s greatest commodity

To the stockman there is no sight more beautiful than a range producing an abundant growth of good forage on which good livestock is making him a living. The above scene illustrates the luxuriant forage which can and should be obtained on most of our mountain ranges.

Return of abandoned fields to forage production can be hastened by reseeding

The favorable climate and natural beauty of the ponderosa pine zone throughout Colorado led to intensive settlement of most of the 4 million acres which it occupies. Along with settlement came agriculture and cultivation. The better lands were used for the production of potatoes, lettuce, grain and other crops adapted to the climate or needs of the settlers.

Studies show cattle shrink 47 pounds in corral overnight

During a study of range management at the Central Plains Experimental Range in northeastern Colorado, observations were made on the amount of shrink of yearling Hereford range cattle held overnight in a dry lot. As transactions with cattle often must consider shrink under somewhat similar conditions, this information will interest buyers and sellers alike.

It pays to stock your ranges conservatively

If a section of your mountain grazing land yielded an income of $316, $592, or $478 in a given year, depending upon the manner in which it was stocked, you would have felt badly, indeed, if you hadn’t secured the maximum return. Yet many stockmen are still taking a limited return each year because they do not realize the importance of good grass management or because they are not aware of the land potentialities.