|
|
|
 |
Hardy Natives at Home
on the U.S. Range
|
At the ARS Forage and Range
Research Laboratory in Logan,
Utah, researchers strive to improve
native and non-native plant species
for use on western rangelands.
Here, geneticist Tom Hones
searches for bluebunch wheatgrass
to increase genetic diversity in
a breeding program.
(K8663-1) |
You have four legs, a four-part
stomach, and you're ready for a snack. What's to eat?
If you're lucky, you may soon be munching on Timp Utah sweetvetch—a tasty
native plant having a pink-to-purple flower.
Timp, along with Rimrock Indian ricegrass and Sand Hollow squirreltail, are
native plants readied for growers by scientists at the
ARS Forage and Range Research Laboratory
in Logan, Utah, and their colleagues.
Hardy and well-adapted, these plants help hold soil in place and revegetate
lands denuded by wildfire or disturbed by mining. What's more, they help stop
the takeover of native ecosystems by invasive weeds like cheatgrass.
"Our lab is the only Agricultural Research Service unit that breeds native
plants for western ranges," says N. Jerry Chatterton, the head of the
Logan laboratory. " Although we have also produced non-native grasses for
planting in the West, we help develop natives, as well, because in some
instances native species are the best plants for the job at hand." |
Seed heads of various native grasses
(left to right): western wheatgrass,
Snake River wheatgrass, Indian ricegrass,
Great Basin wildrye, squirreltail, and green needlegrass.
(K8662-1) |
A Taste-Tempting Legume
Timp Utah sweetvetch, Hedysarum boreale, belongs to the legume family,
so it is a relative of peas and beans. Timp is best suited for its native
intermountain region of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho, and—within
that region—thrives in areas with 12 to 18 inches of annual precipitation.
Its abundant, attractive flowers produce long, flattened seedpods that, when
still green and soft, can be eaten by animals. It provides early spring forage
not only for cattle and sheep, but for wild ruminants as well, including deer,
bison, elk, and moose.
"This plant is so popular with animals," says ARS plant physiologist
Douglas A. Johnson at Logan, "that, after planting, it needs to be
protected from grazing for about a year to give it a chance to get
established."
|
Geneticist Tom Jones examines Utah
sweetvetch flowering at North Ogden
Pass in the Wasatch Mountains.
(K8657-2) |
Scientists selected Timp from among other promising candidates because of its
vigor, adaptability, and seed production. The ARS researchers worked with
colleagues from USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Plant
Materials Center at Meeker, Colorado; USDA's Forest Service; the State of Utah;
and Colorado and Utah State Universities.
Johnson and colleague Timothy M.J. Ford—at that time a graduate
student—scrutinized Timp and other candidate sweetvetches during 3 years
of greenhouse and outdoor tests. They monitored about 40 key traits, including
how much leaf and root tissue the plants produced. They also compared the
plants' ability to fix nitrogen; that is, to capture the gaseous form of this
nutrient from the atmosphere and turn it into fertilizer. |
Geneticists Steven Larson and
Kevin Johnson observe inherited
traits in hybrids resulting from
crosses between Great Basin
wildrye and beardless rye.
(K8659-1) |
Restoring With Rimrock
Animals looking for another snack might try Rimrock Indian ricegrass, or
Achnatherum hymenoides.A perennial bunchgrass, Indian ricegrass ranges
from the western Great Plains west to the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada,
according to Logan plant geneticist Thomas A. Jones.
"Rimrock," he says, "is ideal for restoring damaged native
ecosystems on sandy soils." Jones tested it with co-researchers from the
NRCS Plant Materials Center at Bridger, Montana, and the agricultural
experiment stations of Montana and Wyoming.
Ricegrass gets its name from its stalks. When in bloom, they vaguely resemble
those of a rice plant. "Some Native Americans who lived in the Great
Basin," says Jones, "used ricegrass seed for food. They ground it
into flour for making a nut-flavored mush."
Rimrock's seeds also make an excellent food for game birds like mourning dove
and valley quail or for songbirds such as green-tailed towhee. What's more, it
retains mature seed longer than many other Indian ricegrasses—even in high
winds and heavy rains. |
Far left photo, geneticist Tom Jones
and plant physiologist Doug Johnson
(right) observe seed head maturity
in a cultivated plot of squirreltail.
(K8658-1) |
"Discovering that trait in Rimrock," says Jones, "was our most
important contribution to this collaborative research." Indian ricegrasses
that retain seed longer are desirable because their seed has a better chance of
staying on the plant until harvest instead of dropping to the ground."
Better seed retention," Jones says, "should help make mechanical
harvesting easier and less expensive. That lowers the cost of producing seed
and opens the door to wider use of Indian ricegrass in the West."A
Grass Called Squirreltail
Sand Hollow squirreltail—named for its showy, plumelike heads—grows
up to 20 inches tall. A perennial, squirreltail is known to botanists as
Elymus elymoides.
Sand Hollow is the first squirreltail released for commercial production. Says
Jones, "It withstands wildfires and germinates readily."
|
In an ARS test plot (on a University
research farm) Utah State University
research assistant Mayme Seng
pollinates Snake River wheatgrass.
(K8660-1) |
Jones and colleagues selected Sand
Hollow from among squirreltails collected at sites in more than a half-dozen
states, including California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Washington, and
Wyoming. The scientists put the plants through 3 years of outdoor evaluation in
Utah.
One of Sand Hollow's primary intended uses is to restore rangelands currently
overwhelmed by highly aggressive, non-native plants such as cheatgrass or
medusahead wildrye. The native plant, Jones says, is best suited for sandy
soils throughout the Snake River region of southern Idaho, as well as in parts
of Oregon, Nevada, and Utah.
Its attractive golden plumes produce more seeds than the other squirreltails
tested by Jones, ARS colleague Douglas A. Johnson, and scientists with Utah
State University and with NRCS' Plant Materials Center at Aberdeen, Idaho.
|
In a cultivated field of bluebunch
wheatgrass, geneticist Kay Asay
(left) and Tom Jones
discuss seed yields.
(K8661-1) |
"Native plants," says Jones, "are often erratic in seed
yield—that is, the pounds per acre of seed that they produce. For that
reason, Sand Hollow's prolific seed production is among its most valuable
traits."
Sand Hollow squirreltail may soon have a role in restoring burned-out sites at
the unique Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area located about
35 miles south of Boise, Idaho. This 81-mile stretch of winding canyon and
broad plain is home to what is thought to be the country's greatest
concentration of nesting birds of prey—eagles, falcons, hawks, ospreys,
and owls.
"Sand Hollow," says Jones, "could help restore habitat used by
small animals like Townsend's ground squirrels, a favorite of prairie falcons,
or by the black-tailed jackrabbits that are essential to the survival of golden
eagles."
The area's destructive cycle of wildfires is blamed largely on cheatgrass, an
alien annual plant that dries out in summer, providing an ideal fuel each year
for wildfires. "In the past 20 years," Jones says, "more than 60
percent of the conservation area's grass and shrub ecosystem has been hit by
wildfire."
If selected to displace the troublesome cheatgrass, Sand Hollow squirreltail
may help boost the survival of the Snake River Canyon's magnificent
raptors.—By Marcia Wood,
Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
This research is part of Rangeland, Pasture, and Forages, an ARS National
Program (#205) described on the World Wide Web at
http://www.nps.ars.usda.gov/programs/nrsas.htm.
N. Jerry Chatterton,
Douglas A. Johnson, and
Thomas A. Jones are with the USDA-ARS
Forage and Range Research
Laboratory, 690 N. 1100 E., Logan, UT 84322-6300; phone (435) 797-3066, fax
(435) 797-3075. |
|
"Hardy Natives at Home on the U.S. Range"
was published in the April 2000 issue
of Agricultural Research magazine.
|
|
|
[Top]
|
|
|
|
Printable Version
E-mail this page
