
Researchers to Help Restore Burned Nevada
LandsBy Kathryn Barry
Stelljes October 6, 1999Experts on rangelands at the
Agricultural Research Service have
joined a 33-agency emergency rehabilitation team to revegetate some of the more
than 1.5 million Nevada acres that burned during the summer. On Sept. 3,
USDA declared five counties in Nevada as
agricultural disaster areas. The fires have wide-ranging effects: Forage for cattle and wildlife has gone
up in smoke on private and public grazing lands. Wind erosion on burned desert
soils has caused traffic fatalities. Denuded watersheds will be at greater risk
for flooding when rains begin. ARS scientists in Reno, Nev., have more than 50 years of research experience
in the delicate, high-risk process of revegetating semi-desert rangelands. They
are helping the interagency team decide where to reseed and which plants to
use. Over the long term, the scientists are working on ways to keep a
fire-feeding weed called cheatgrass from getting a stranglehold on rangeland.
The scientists are part of the
ARS Exotic and
Invasive Weeds Research Unit headquartered at the
Western Regional Research Center in
Albany, Calif. Summer lightning typically starts fires on Nevada rangeland, but an
abundance of cheatgrass has helped fuel a greater number of more destructive
fires than usual. Some cover hundreds of thousands of acres. Native shrubs like
sagebrush and shadscale grow several feet apart, reducing a fires ability
to spread. But fire spreads rapidly when cheatgrass proliferates. After a fire,
cheatgrass returns before most other plants. ARS researchers determined that
the first time cheatgrass rangeland burns, there is a chance for rehabilitation
if the site is seeded to perennial grasses that year. Otherwise, cheatgrass
will reestablish and become increasingly difficult to control. Therefore, land
management agencies will focus their revegetation efforts on those areas that
have burned for the first time. Public land managers plan to seed 5 million pounds of seed using highly
specialized equipment designed for use in rocky, semi-desert soils. The seed
mix includes native shrubs and grasses as well as HyCrest, an ARS crested
wheatgrass variety developed at the
ARS Forage and Range Research
Unit in Logan, Utah. ARS is the lead research agency for the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Scientific contact: James A. Young, ARS Exotic and Invasive Weeds
Research Unit, Reno, Nev., phone (775) 784-6057, fax (775) 784-1712,
[email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |