Cooperative agreement with New Mexico State University

Locoweed causes significant economic losses in the plains, prairies and desert areas of the central and southwestern United States. As much as 23 million acres in southwestern United States could be subjected to management of one single undesirable species, white locoweed. The traditional motivation for controlling locoweed on rangelands involves toxic plant prevention and increasing forage for livestock and wildlife. The overall objectives of this research are:

To understand the biological characteristics of locoweed, develop biologically sound strategies for minimizing locoweed impacts and suppress germinations, increase the predictability and thereby effectiveness of locoweed management techniques, and to develop animal health and locoweed prevention programs that are economically, environmentally, and socially acceptable.

Locoweed management has the potential to yield positive social returns by alleviating water scarcity while increasing land productivity and environmental quality. Cooperative agreement with Washington State University

 

Cooperative agreement with Washington State University

Lupine-induced "crooked calf disease" continues to be a problem in the western U.S. and especially in the scablands of central and southern Washington State causing large economic losses to livestock producers. In 1997 over 4,000 calves either died or were destroyed in Adams County, Washington because of birth defects. The objectives of this research are to determine the relationship in cattle between body condition and their propensity to graze lupine plants or susceptibility of the developing fetus to lupine toxicity, to compare blood alkaloid levels and excretion rates in cows identified as lupine eaters and non-lupine eaters; and to determine differences in lupine consumption between cows that had crooked calves and those that had normal calves.