Subject: Re: Field notes from Benton Co (ALE)
Date: Mar 23 09:42:56 1995
From: Don Baccus - donb at Rational.COM


>Human intervention in
>this 'fire ecology' has permitted vast areas of the Great Basin to become
>vegetated with large _Artemisia_ and other shrubs;

Actually, grazing has probably had as large an effect as cattle
preferentially graze grasses and the like rather than foul-tasting
sage or spiny greasewood, etc. And native bunchgrasses, well,
at least Great Basin Rye, are/is very sensitive to grazing. Deer
tend to browse shrubby plants. Cows tend to sit and munch more
thoroughly.

>Another result of fire suppression has been the invasion of Juniper from
>the rimrock areas to the lower slopes and beyond. This has been
>documented in numerous articles in the journals of the Society for Range
.Management. Some of the articles implicate grazing activity along with
>the fire suppression as a causative factor - probably depends on the
>location, etc.

Yes to both, though I believe that fire suppression, rather than grazing,
is more responsible for the spread of juniper. Juniper used to be
much more restricted to ridgelines and slopes which lie to the lee
side of prevailing winds. If you check out a burn on a juniper covered
slope (there are some good examples on the west side of Oregon 205
down at Malheur NWR), you'll see that the burns tend to "top out"
at the ridge-top, but that every juniper on the windward side of
the slope is gone. Juniper burn spectacularly, quickly, and fatally.

>I am not as well acquainted with the Palouse steppe, but I would be surprised
>if 'old-growth' sagebrush stands there are not artifacts of fire suppression
>activities and heavy historical cattle grazing.

Me either, most of it in NE Oregon is now old-growth wheat farm :)

-Don Baccus-