Managing Medusahead grass with cattle
Allowing late-fall and winter grazing could provide extra forage, reduce wildfire fuel.
October 23, 2023
A multi-year study involving University of Idaho researchers has found allowing late-fall and winter grazing on rangeland heavily infested with invasive Medusahead grass could provide extra forage for cattlemen while reducing wildfire fuel.
“Managing Medusahead Using Dormant Season Grazing in the Northern Great Basin,” recently published in the 2023 edition of Rangeland Ecology and Management, also concluded grazing in the fall and winter did not negatively affect native perennial grasses.
University of Idaho Extension Educator Scott Jensen, based in Owyhee County, and Eva Strand, an associate professor of rangeland ecology and management with U of I’s College of Natural Resources, were among the authors.
Other authors included William Price and Sergio Arispe, with Oregon State University (OSU) Extension; April Hulet, with Brigham Young University; Chad Boyd and Kirk Davies, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center; Dustin Johnson and Yanming Di, with OSU; and Barry Perryman, with University of Nevada-Reno.
Medusahead, an annual grass native to the western Mediterranean region of Eurasia, has invaded nearly 5 million acres of rangeland throughout the West, posing a host of problems for rangeland health including loss of species diversity, diminished forage quality and increased fine fuels for wildfires. It thrives in lower elevations, in areas in which soil is disturbed, and it germinates in the fall and dries much earlier during the following spring than other vegetation. It is fine stemmed, causing it to fall over and form mats that can choke out native perennials, and cattle tend to avoid eating it due to its long awns and high silica content.
“The heavily infested Medusahead areas are just a tinderbox waiting for some kind of ignition source,” Jensen said.
In June, the research team finished collecting its sixth year of data from the study, based in the 138,800-acre Three Fingers allotment, located within the federal Bureau of Land Management’s Vale, Oregon, district.