MANAGEMENT THAT RESTORES THE RANGE

R. S. Campbell, Lincoln Ellison, F. G. Renner

MOST run-down ranges can be improved. By improving the range, the stockman, the community, and the Nation gain. Restoration through wise use is witnessed by many specific examples in all parts of the range country. Many more ranges need such restoration. This article explains how to tell when grazed ranges need to recover, when they are on the mend, and how good livestock and range management can take advantage of natural processes to bring ranges back to greater productivity.

Restoration of range values can be accomplished most effectively and economically and in the shortest period of time by the wise use of all range techniques best suited to the type of operation involved, effectively coordinated with the natural growth habits and requirements of the principal forage plants.

The state of health or productivity of a range is known as range condition. Likewise, the steps or stages in the up- building of ranges are known in practical management as range condition classes, from very poor to excellent.

Range condition never stands still for long. It is either improving or declining. Range deterioration is but the effect of a downward trend of condition, the depletion of the plant cover and soil. Range restoration means stopping deterioration and bringing about an upward trend from an unsatisfactory to a satisfactory condition.

Five range condition classes are generally recognized, as mentioned previously.

A range in excellent condition has a fully productive stable soil and is producing all or nearly all the forage that it can. Good condition closely approaches excellent. Fair, poor, and very poor condition are all considered unsatisfactory because the soil is not fully productive and the range is growing only a part of the forage of which it is capable.

Even within each class, there may be a rather wide variation in density, composition, and vigor. Because each range has its own top or excellent condition, ranges must be classified in terms of their own best possible soil development and kind and amount of plant cover and forage production. For example, a mountain meadow naturally has a higher rainfall, deeper, richer soil, a thicker plant cover, and much greater forage growth than a semidesert grassland, even when both are in satisfactory condition. Hence, a mountain meadow cannot be judged by the standards one would use for a desert grassland.

Ranges in excellent condition do not need restoration because they are already producing all the forage possible under the existing climate. The plant cover protects the soil from abnormal erosion and maintains the fertility. The better forage plants, particularly the deeper-rooted, perennial grasses, predominate with palatable weeds and shrubs on some ranges. Better plants reproduce well in favorable years. Some litter covers the ground, and the topsoil is loose and friable, containing dark organic matter more in areas of high rainfall than in the semidesert. The soil is porous and readily absorbs large amounts of moisture. The runoff water is clear. In other words, ranges in excellent condition serve every purpose as fully as possible.

Ranges in good condition are generally satisfactory although they produce less forage than those in excellent condition. The better perennial plants predominate, but there are some less palatable plants. The plant cover is thinner. There is less litter and the topsoil may show less organic matter. Erosion, if it occurs at all, is slight. Ranges in good condition offer an opportunity to increase production and value through conservative grazing and other management practices that encourage the more palatable plants. The job of restoration is not difficult or time consuming, as the better forage plants and soil are still there for quick improvement.

Ranges in fair condition are definitely unsatisfactory. Both soil and plant cover have been distinctly damaged, and restoration is no longer a quick or easy task. Valuable forage plants are considerably reduced in stand, their places occupied either by bare soil or by less palatable perennial grasses, weeds and shrubs. Annuals have usually increased. There is less total plant cover and litter and there is likely to be active erosion, particularly on the slopes. The dark topsoil layer is seriously disturbed, containing only moderate amounts of organic matter, and with only fair capacity to hold available moisture. The exposed surface of clay and silt soils may be hard and crusted. Runoff water is heavy with silt. If neglected, fair ranges slip quickly to a poorer condition. If handled carefully, they can gradually be restored. Reseeding is often practicable.

Ranges in poor condition have lost so much of the forage stand and topsoil that they produce only a fraction of the forage grown on similar ranges in good or excellent condition. Few of the more valuable perennial forage plants remain, and low-value annuals or perennial weeds and shrubs such as snakeweed, juniper, and mesquite may predominate. Removal of topsoil by washing or blowing has exposed the subsoil or left a gravel "pavement." The soil has little organic matter and a low available moisture-holding capacity. There is active sheet and some gully erosion. Runoff is rapid and heavy with silt. The job of restoring poor ranges to full productivity is a major one. Years, even decades, may be required gradually to build back the organic matter in the topsoil that marks satisfactory condition. Where soil and moisture conditions permit, ranges in poor condition should be reseeded to adapted forage species, to hasten recovery.

Ranges in very poor condition have only a sparse stand of low-value plants, mostly annuals or unpalatable shrubs. Grazing capacity is very low, sometimes 5 percent or less of potential. The topsoil, with its organic matter, is largely gone, and the soil can hold little moisture for plant growth. The remaining soil is exposed to serious wind or water erosion. Gullies are extensive. Runoff from sudden summer storms forms flash floods, muddy with silt. Under such conditions natural restoration is a very long, arduous, and uncertain process. Where rainfall is sufficient, and where enough soil is left to support a forage stand, reseeding will usually aid recovery. Artificial aids such as furrows, terraces, and the like may be necessary on slopes to retain the soil in place long enough for better plants to take hold.

It is a matter of dollars and cents to the stockman to know the trend of his range condition to be able to check when his management is improving its productivity. The indicators of an improving range vary in detail from one part of the country to another but in general may be summarized under three heads : (1) Improving soil character and stability; (2) increasing density and amount of vegetation; and (3) change in the kind of plant cover with better plants becoming predominant. All three must be considered together to judge range trend accurately.

Invasions of perennial plants into the bare soil openings are indicators of soil stabilization, as is the rounding of sharp erosional surfaces like the shoulders and bottoms of gullies as vegetation becomes established on them. A darkening and mellowing of the surface soil through addition of humus shows improvement. The old marks of erosion gullies, wind-blown 'depressions, plant pedestals, erosion pavement provide a record of deterioration that is written over, as it were, by a new record of plant invasion and building up of litter and dark soil. Building of soil means not only improving fertility but preservation of humus and tiny spaces between soil particles which store up needed moisture for vegetation. Plants growing on noneroded soil require less water than those on eroded soil. That means rainfall is used more efficiently on ranges in satisfactory condition more forage is produced per inch of rainfall than on ranges in unsatisfactory condition and the soil is more adequately protected against erosion.

Change in density and amount of vegetation is a second important indicator of range trend. Vigorous forage plants, increasing in abundance by natural reseeding or otherwise on conservatively grazed range, are signs of stands being restored. Grazing must be So regulated that the better forage Plants are allowed to spread.

Shifts in the kinds of plants present and the relative proportion of each kind are also important indicators of changes in range condition. From a very poor condition, the increase of any perennial plant cover is usually an improvement. A general thickening of palatable weeds and grasses is a mark of restoration from poor or fair. In most normal perennial forage stands there are young, "middle-aged," and old plants. The old ones die off naturally. A population of young palatable plants is a sign of an improvement in condition.