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Grazing does not have to hurt land health
Bozeman, MT – Livestock grazing is often blamed for poor land health, but it does not have to be.
During the Sheep Symposium at this year’s Western Section meeting, Rachel Frost, a research scientist at Montana State University, said livestock grazing used in conjunction with other land management techniques is a good way to improve livestock production and land health.
Rangeland, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s land, is considered the most degraded land type in the world.
Frost said the solution to rangeland degradation does not lie in the exclusion of livestock grazing. Instead the restoration of degraded rangeland lies in combining livestock grazing with herbicides, mechanical treatments, prescribed burning and/or insect biological control agents.
By integrating livestock grazing with these other management tools, invasive weed populations can be controlled.
“We apply one tool and hope that the tool will set up the vegetation, either by changing the structure or composition, to make the following tool successful in accomplishing the overall vegetation management goal,” said Frost.
Grazing and herbicides
Grazing can be combined with herbicides to either stress plants before herbicide use or after herbicide use to control residual plants. Studies have found this method to be especially effective at controlling leafy spurge and spotted knapweed.
Grazing and prescribed fire
Grazing combined with prescribed fires is an effective way to control invasive annual grasses such as cheatgrass. By moderating the fuel load for prescribed fires, this combination decreases risk of wildfire.
Grazing and mechanical control
This combination of management tools is effective at controlling woody plant species and shrubs. Mechanical control can provide a “top-kill.” Regrowth of these plants provide livestock with vegetation that contains fewer toxins and is more palatable.
Grazing and insect biological control agents
Combining these two management tools should be done with great care and planning. The combination has been known to be effective less than 30 percent of the time. Success takes a longer amount of time and is often not as economical as the other livestock grazing combinations.
Despite the bad reputation livestock has for degrading land quality and value, numerous studies show that proper management of livestock can actually improve land quality and value.
“It’s going to require a little bit of a change in attitude,” said Frost, “both from us, as grazing managers, and from the land managers, particularly on the agency side of things who have constantly been reminded that they think livestock grazing is a problem.”
Western Section schedule for Wednesday
7:00 am – 6:00 pm, Registration, Museum of the Rockies, Lobby
7:30 am – 5:00 pm Beef Symposium: Sustainable Production and Management Practices of Ranches in Southwestern Montana. Read more 
Gene discovery leads to new OPP test
Photo courtesy of USDA NRCS
By Sandra Avant / USDA ARS
A new test is available to help sheep producers identify animals at high risk for ovine progressive pneumonia (OPP), thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.
An incurable, wasting disease, OPP affects millions of sheep worldwide. Infected sheep are less productive and have fewer lambs. In addition to pneumonia, animals show signs of lameness and “hard bag” syndrome, which causes udders to become hard and produce little milk.
Scientists at ARS’ Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC) in Clay Center, Neb., found that the gene TMEM154 affects susceptibility to OPP virus infection in sheep. Read more
Book Review: Healthy Eating Made Easy
By Dr. Mary Beth Hall
As a ruminant nutritionist, I’ve tended to think that I have a pretty good understanding of nutrition in general, including how the basic concepts apply to people. I’ve also had more than enough of books and press releases on the latest, greatest fad diet that will cure all. “Healthy Eating Made Easy” by Michael Edmonds was an eye-opener for me. In a very practical fashion, Dr. Edmonds wrapped goals for a healthy diet with the physiology of why our bodies work as they do with what we eat. Dr. Edmonds combined that information with realistic ways of achieving our goals for our diet and body weight. And you do not have to be a PhD nutritionist to make sense of the information; the book was very easy to read and to understand. No hype. It was a refreshing approach on how to take control of what we eat and why we should. Read more
Animals in the news
Duck Combat: Fighting bird flu
Recent research on the genome of a duck has provided new insight on influenza viruses. Since February, a bird flu epidemic in China has killed 36 people and resulted in a $6.5 billion loss to China’s economy. Read more
