Enhance Economic Opportunities for Agricultural Producers

How Soon Is Too Soon? Determining Best Grazing Practices After Rangeland Fires

Issue (Who cares and why?)
      A major portion of Northern Nevada has burned over the past several years, severely reducing production capability and greatly impacting natural resources. Reducing the problems caused by the burned areas down to their least common denominator most will agree that three factor always remain. In the short term, the problem is supplying forage to livestock that grazed these lands. For the longer-term, the problems are rehabilitation and prevention of future fires.
      While it is standard practice to delay grazing on all burned areas for several years, there is no definitive proof that this is necessary. Depending on the burn intensity, plant growth can be rapid in a short period after a fire and the grazing deferment may not be as necessary as BLM doctrine prescribes. Seeding as a rehabilitation process is a logical conclusion. However because of the large areas affected, and different burn intensities, 100% seeding coverage may not be necessary. Nature has a large capacity to rejuvenate itself. In areas less susceptible to cheatgrass infestation, or where dust problems do not occur, seeding may neither necessary nor desirable. This project investigates the results of seeding and not seeding and subsequent timing of grazing, in a variety of ecological settings.

What has been done?
      The study area is a fire impacted BLM permit site. The affected area was divided into 4 large blocks for multiple research purposes. Each of the pastures had similar representatives of vegetation, soils, topography, riparian areas, fire intensity, precipitation zones, and historical wildlife and livestock use. The major design components are seeded and unseeded areas and grazed and ungrazed areas. The grazing treatments were implemented in year one after the fire. Stocking rate were designed to achieve 50 percent utilization. Approximately 200 AUMs were used, although this number fluctuated to match the forage produced due to rainfall and growing conditions. Varying the number of cattle and the time they are allowed to graze were used to achieve the 50 percent utilization rates. Representatives from UNR and BLM worked together to collect the monitoring data to ensure useful data for both parties. Animal (weight change, body condition score change for both cows and calves in cow/calf pairs), vegetation (primary productivity, plant density, plant cover, species composition), and economic performance (cost return analysis, comparison impact analysis, firm to community level impacts) criteria were used to evaluate the relative success of the treatments. These criteria will provide the basic information to answer some of the questions concerning timing of grazing and fire rehabilitation procedures, as well as suggest future areas of research.

Impact
      Unprecedented wildland fires have had major impacts on vegetation systems throughout the Great Basin. Nursing northeastern Nevada, as well as other burned states, back to ecological health will be a monumental task requiring ongoing commitment from the public, land users and governments as well as long-term funding. However, to accept the status quo of “No Grazing for 3 Years” without proper scientific proof, could potentially bankrupt many ranchers dependant on BLM grazing permits.
      Our research shows that much of Nevada’s burned rangeland could sustain grazing with no significant losses to plant diversity or density. It also indicates that the value of output per AUM to be $35.35. This value corresponds to the dollar amount that each AUM contributes to the range cattle sectors total gross value of production (or gross value of output). The total AUM's lost due to wildfire in the five hardest hit counties during 1999 wildfires are estimated to be 133,819, resulting in a direct impact to the livestock sector of $4,730,051. Much of this cost could have been avoided if BLM’s blanket strategy was not employed.

Contact
Ben Bruce
Animal Biotechnology/202
University of Nevada
Reno, Nevada 89557
bbruce@unr.nevada.edu