
Plants and Range Management
Ed Peterson
NRCS
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Range plants provide
forage for animals and wildlife. They
hold the soil in place and prevent erosion.
Some examples are:
- Purple
Sage, which is actually a mint. Purple Sage is an attractive shrub
but
it is not important for grazing
- Cheat
grass is an introduced weed. When it matures it becomes hard and
stiff. It is an important forage in early spring.
- Western
Wheat grass is one of the very best native plants.
- Locoweed
- Snakeweed
is poisonous.
- 4 wing
salt brush will be grazed by cattle but it is not favored.
- Spiny Hop
Sage is eaten by many different animals.
- Sagebrush
- Bitterbrush,
a member of the rose family, it is a main food for deer in the winter.
- Rabbit
brush can be used to tell when land is being overgrazed. The population
of rabbit brush increases in overgrazed land.
- Golden
currant was an important food plant for Native Americans.
There are three main
groups of range plants: grasses,
forbs, and shrubs. Grasses have slender leaves and
hollow
stems. Forbs include weeds and wildflowers that
are
broad-leaved and grow in fields, prairies, or meadows. Shrubs
are woody plants of relatively low height, having several stems arising
from
the base and lacking a single trunk. There are also grass like
plants
called sedges that have narrow, grass like leaves, but
having
solid stems, and grow around rivers, streams, and springs.
Annual plants die every year and
come back from seed. Perennial
plants come back year after year from live roots. Annual grass
has
smaller superficial roots compared to perennial grasses.
Different range animals eat different things that humans need to manage
for the
animals. Mule deer need more shrub growth than the antelope, which eats
more perennial
grasses. Sage grouse require a very intricate ecosystem.
They need
between 15-25% sagebrush coverage to survive. They eat the
sagebrush,
forbs, and perennial grasses, but the birds also eat the soft bug nests
found
in perennials grasses that grow near sagebrush.
For more
about plants, visit our vegetation database
The Owyhee
Watershed Council's
educational activities are supported by the
Oregon Watershed Enhancement
Board.
For further information please contact:
Jennifer Martin
Owyhee Watershed Coordinator
(541) 889-2588.
Owyhee
Field Day Home Page
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For
additional
information about the Malheur Agricultural Experiment Station, please
send
an e-mail request to:
Dr. Clinton C. Shock
Clinton.Shock@oregonstate.edu
Malheur Agricultural Experiment
Station
595 Onion Avenue
Ontario, OR 97914
(541) 889-2174
FAX (541) 889-7831
Last updated
Monday June 5, 2006.