(March 1, 2008)  Efforts promoting the value of livestock as a tool to manage unwanted vegetation are bearing fruit.

Both the House and the Senate versions of the 2007 Farm Bill contain language permitting targeted grazing of invasive species on land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). And leaders from federal land-management agencies acknowledge that livestock grazing can provide a crucial service in maintaining healthy landscapes.

“We will have grazing on CRP for invasive species,” Fran Boyd, senior vice president at Meyers & Associates, told the ASI Prescribed Grazing Committee in Las Vegas. “The targeted grazing brochure and handbook were very helpful as were some of the people from the West in getting this done.”

Among those from the West were Idaho producer, Margaret Soulen Hinson, and Texas rangeland specialist, John Walker, Ph.D. They visited Washington to promote the value of grazing, including a meeting with the Inter-Agency Range Research Group, which represents several federal agencies.

“Everybody we talked to was very interested,” said Walker. “People in the Forest Service understand that grazing works, but they’re often in a position of having to defend it. They need success stories on where it’s been used.”

Janette Kaiser, director of rangeland programs for the U.S. Forest Service, said targeted herbivory is a superior way to manage vegetation, cheaper and more environmentally sensitive than chemicals.

“I’m really pleased with the results of your efforts on targeted grazing,” said Kaiser. “It’s helping us to manage the land better and helping everybody understand that there’s a reason to have livestock on public land.”

Hinson, acknowledging support from high levels, said, “The trick is to see how we can get this directed down to the field.”

That effort should be enhanced by three workshops planned this spring for field-level personnel from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service and Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and producers.

“As we get some of these ground-level people in the workshops on targeted grazing, we’ll get more engagement in this,” said Maine producer, Brant Miller, chair of the Prescribed Grazing Committee.

The workshops are planned for late March in New Mexico and mid-April in Pennsylvania and Idaho. They are part of completing a $100,000 NRCS grant on Biocontrol of Invasive Plants with Sheep and Goats.

Some other developments of the grant include the posting of the targeted grazing handbook to ASI’s Web site, and a draft syllabus, based on the handbook, has been created and posted to the web as well. The advantage of the online syllabus is that it can be continually reviewed and updated to provide the latest information.

“It’s a living document that can be continually updated,” Miller said.

Some of the new information will include results from two current research projects funded under the NRCS grant.

One project is targeting knapweed using sheep along the Madison River in Montana, located on BLM, Fish and Game and private land that includes 28 landowners. Montana weed specialist, Rodney Kott, who is working on the project, said that when the project started, knapweed covered 60 percent to 70 percent of the area. Now, the site is 64 percent grass and only 6 percent knapweed.

“We’ve moved from a knapweed-dominated landscape to one dominated by forage,” said Kott.

The second project, grazing goats on yellow starthistle in Idaho, is showing promising results in reducing the invasive weed.

The NRCS grant calls for a third research project, which has yet to get off the ground. Miller said he would like to see the project target the Midwest or East.

Additional projects on the drawing board for targeted grazing include: 

• develop contract grazer certification;
• craft protocols for monitoring plants targeted for grazing;
• develop best management practices on various plant species; and
• put together information that compares the economics of targeted grazing with other vegetation management practices.