Location: Rangeland Resources & Systems Research
2025 Annual Report
Objectives
Objective 1: Enable climate-smart decision-making by developing science-based, region-specific information, tools and technologies for agricultural and natural resource managers, and provide assistance where possible to enhance adoption and implementation of the same. The work will be conducted as the Northern Plains USDA Climate Change Hub and will be coordinated with NRCS, FS, and other USDA and non-USDA organizations in accordance with guidance found in the USDA Climate Change Hubs Charter, and Terms of Reference.
Objective 2: Expand and enhance each Hub’s research and communication capacity and ensure integration of ARS research outcomes from across the region into Hub outreach assets.
Objective #3: Provide capacity to expand and enhance the hub’s climate-science, social-science, and economic-science resources and tools via enhanced collaboration with ARS research teams and other research partners to ensure impactful integration of ARS research outcomes from across the region into Hub outreach assets.
Approach
The climate hubs relate directly to the Sustainable Agricultural Systems Research National Program (NP216) Action Plan (2018-2022), Component 3. Achieving Agroecosystem Potential and these problem statements: Problem Statement 3a. Sustaining Intensified Production; Problem Statement 3b. Enhancing ecosystem services; and Problem Statement 3c. Enabling decision support for sustainability.
Progress Report
The USDA Northern Plains Climate Hub has three Objectives. For Objective 1: Enabling climate-smart decision-making among agricultural and natural resource managers in the Northern Plains via science synthesis, tool support, and outreach the efforts focused on improvements to Grass-Cast grassland production forecasts, (https://grasscast.unl.edu), both in the Great Plains and Southwest. Producer-feedback was incorporated into modifications of text in the Grass-Cast maps for interpretation. A peer-reviewed scientific paper was submitted on the evaluation of Grass-Cast in the Southwest. Outreach efforts including reactivating (via collaborations with the National Weather Service in Cheyenne) that Cold Advisory for Newborn Livestock (CANL) tool and expanding across Wyoming, engaging with attendees at the National Association of Conservation Districts meeting, the Northeast Wyoming Rangeland Recovery event, the 2025 MonDak Ag Days, the High Plains Organic Conference, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association winter meeting, the Wyoming and Colorado Associations of Conservation District meetings, the Regenerate Conference, and the Sustainable Agricultural Summit.
Objective 2: Expand the Hub’s research and communication capacity. Staff mentored an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) science communication participant who was developing curriculum for junior high and high school agricultural teachers regarding agricultural decision-making with highly variable weather conditions.
Objective 3: Enhance the Hub’s resources and tools in collaboration with research partners. The postdoctoral fellow worked with dryland farmers in Wyoming and Colorado, and ARS and Colorado State University scientists regarding opportunities with the perennial grain Kernza (intermediate wheatgrass) for new revenue streams from dryland agricultural farming systems.
Accomplishments
1. Increasing knowledge of how ranchers adaptively manage for drought. Ranchers maintain economically viable operations despite changing weather conditions and variability, including drought. In semi- arid rangelands, ranchers use conservative stocking strategies to reduce risk to their cattle herd genetics and natural resources, and to remain in business and transition the ranch to the next generation. ARS researchers in Fort Collins, Colorado, and scientists from the University of Wyoming used surveys and small-group meetings to determine that rancher decision-making triggers and drought monitoring to adjust stocking rates within a grazing season and/or across grazing seasons are often based on on-site, observational, and localized indicators such as precipitation, soil moisture, and observed plant stress. This stewardship ethic helps support long-term ranching operational viability through limiting the negative impacts on plant communities (key species and production) associated with overgrazing and production losses related to reduced cattle weight gains.
Review Publications
Donaldson, E., Wilmer, H.N., Knapp, C., Derner, J.D. 2024. Understanding how ranchers adaptively manage for drought in northeastern Colorado. Rangeland Ecology and Management. 98:83-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2024.08.026.
Wilmer, H.N., Ferguson, D.B., Dinan, M., Thacker, E., Adler, P.B., Bills Walsh, K., Bradford, J.B., Brunson, M., Derner, J.D., Elias, E.H., Felton, A., Gray, C.A., Greene, C., McClaran, M., Shriver, R.K., Stevenson, M., Suding, K.N. 2024. Resilience is not enough: Toward a more meaningful rangeland adaptation science. Rangeland Ecology and Management. 95:56-67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2024.04.003.