West Texas Rangelands
West Texas RangelandsWe hope to provide a variety of science-based rangeland information and current research on prescribed fire, wildfires, brush management, and grazing management!

Fuel on the Ground: Managing Vegetation to Reduce Wildfire Risk 

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In West Texas, wildfire risk does not wait for summer. By January, grasses are dry, humidity is low, and wind events are common across open rangelands. These conditions make early preparation important. Taking steps now to manage fuel helps reduce how fast fire can move and improves safety when wildfire season approaches. 

What Are Fuel Loads? 

Fuel loads are the amount and arrangement of vegetation available to burn. Heavy fuel loads include thick grasses, dense brush, and dead plant material. These fuels dry out easily during drought or winter, making them more flammable. Reducing fuel loads helps slow fire spread and gives firefighters better chances to contain fires.  

Targeted Grazing to Reduce Fuel 

Targeted grazing uses livestock to reduce fine fuels like grasses and forbs. Cattle, goats, or sheep can be placed in specific areas to eat vegetation before wildfire season. This process lowers grass height and reduces the total fuel available. Research shows that targeted grazing can reduce flame height and fuel continuity, especially where herbaceous fuels are high and woody cover is low.  

Targeted grazing can also be used to form fuel breaks—strips of land with reduced vegetation. Fuel breaks slow fire spread and help protect key areas such as roads, fences, or infrastructure. Placing livestock to graze along these strips before fire season can improve their effectiveness.  

Infrastructure and Access 

Good infrastructure supports fuel management and wildfire response. Well-maintained roads and access points allow managers and fire crews to reach critical areas quickly. Roads also act as breaks in fuel continuity. Regularly clearing vegetation along fence lines, around water sources, and near buildings reduces fuel near structures and allows safer movement of equipment and personnel during a fire event.  

Integrated Fuel Management Fuel reduction works best when multiple tools are used together. In addition to targeted grazing, mechanical treatments, mowing, and prescribed burns may be appropriate on certain sites. Planning fuel management before wildfire season improves its success. Collaboration with local Extension services and wildfire professionals can help tailor strategies to specific rangeland conditions. 

For more information, please download Wildfire…Preparing the Ranch!

Managing Old World Bluestems…A Review

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Merry Christmas!

As we gather with family and friends this holiday season, many of us are also thinking ahead to 2026 rangeland goals, especially the ongoing battle against invasive monocultures of Old-World bluestems. In the spirit of giving useful gifts, here’s a practical, research-backed summary from TAMU RWFM’S Dr. Lucero’s lab on the newest science on how to fight these tough grasses, just in time for your 2026 management planning!

Old-World bluestems, non-native grasses from the genera Bothriochloa and Dichanthium, were originally introduced to the United States for forage and erosion control. However, these species have become invasive, spreading aggressively across rangelands, reducing biodiversity, and providing limited nutritional value to livestock as the growing season progresses. Their crude protein content, for instance, can decline from approximately 19% in early summer to as low as 3-4% later in the year, impacting grazing quality and ecosystem health.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis, published in Rangelands (DOI: 10.1016/j.rala.2025.10.002) from TAMU Rangeland, Wildlife, and Fisheries Department Dr. Talia Humphries, Christopher J. Lortie and Dr. Jacob Lucero, synthesizes existing research on controlling these invasive grasses. This study examined 16 peer-reviewed articles from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, yielding 89 observations. The analysis identifies effective management strategies while highlighting gaps in the literature.

Challenges Posed by Old-World Bluestems

These warm-season perennial grasses, native to regions in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe, thrive in drought-prone, disturbed environments. Introduced since the late 1800s for their resilience to grazing, fire, and poor soil conditions, they now form dense monocultures that outcompete native species. This leads to decreased plant, insect, bird, and mammal diversity, as well as potential facilitation of pests and diseases, such as serving as hosts for vectors of sugarcane white leaf disease.

The review emphasizes the ecological and economic urgency of control, as these species continue to expand across southern U.S. states and Hawaii, threatening rangeland productivity and sustainability.

Key Findings on Control Strategies

The meta-analysis evaluated 15 treatments, measuring their impact on bluestem cover, frequency, biomass, and other metrics using Hedge’s g effect size. The overall effect across treatments was a moderate reduction in invasion (Grand mean = -0.49 ± 0.12). Notably:

  • Prescribed Fire: This standalone treatment significantly reduced bluestem abundance (Hedge’s g = -0.9961, P < 0.0001), offering a practical option for rangeland restoration.
  • Herbicide Combined with Burning: Integrating herbicide application prior to burning yielded strong control (Hedge’s g = -3.1234, P = 0.0018), enhancing efficacy through synergistic effects.
  • Rain Shelter Combined with Burning: Simulating drought conditions via rain exclusion before burning also proved effective (Hedge’s g = -0.8887, P = 0.0100), particularly in arid regions where water stress weakens the grasses.
  • Competition through Overseeding: Introducing competitive native or desirable species significantly curbed bluestem spread (Hedge’s g = -1.1602, P < 0.0001), promoting long-term ecosystem recovery.

Conversely, mechanical removal alone increased bluestem invasion (Hedge’s g = 0.9636, P = 0.0072), likely due to soil disturbance favoring regrowth. Standalone herbicide applications showed no significant effect.

Study duration influenced outcomes, with longer-term experiments indicating potential bluestem resurgence, underscoring the need for repeated or sustained interventions.

Research Gaps and Implications for Management

The analysis reveals a scarcity of studies—only 16 met inclusion criteria despite over 30 years of concern—limiting statistical power for some treatments. Most research focused on Bothriochloa ischaemum, with limited data on other species like Bothriochloa bladhii or Dichanthium annulatum. Few studies explored integrated approaches, suggesting a need for more research on combined strategies and broader geographic representation.

For ranchers, landowners, and conservationists:

  • Prioritize burning or herbicide-burn combinations, consulting local experts for safe implementation and regulatory compliance.
  • Incorporate overseeding with native species to foster competition and biodiversity.
  • Avoid isolated mechanical removal, as it may exacerbate the issue.
  • Monitor sites over multiple years to assess and adapt management plans.

This synthesis provides evidence-based guidance for addressing Old-World bluestems, supporting sustainable rangeland management. For detailed methodologies and results, refer to the full article in Rangelands. Collaboration with extension services can help tailor these strategies to specific locales.

From all of us who work to keep America’s grasslands healthy, we wish you a very Merry Christmas, a prosperous New Year, and strong success in restoring your pastures and prairies in 2026. May your cattle gain well, your native grasses flourish, and your Old-World bluestems finally meet their match.

Merry Christmas!

Fire and Follow-Through!

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This amazing class at TAMU RWFM is focused on Communicating Natural Resources. It covers principles for effectively sharing natural resource science with diverse stakeholders, building essential skills for careers in rangeland, wildlife, and fisheries management. Topics include audience analysis, mixed-media presentations, and interpersonal communication tailored to natural resource contexts. Check out 2025 spring semester’s capstone project!

 

High-Energy Fire Significantly Improves Honey Mesquite Control: Key Findings from a 2022 Texas Study

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A new(er) peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Environmental Management (Starns et al., 2022) provides some of the strongest experimental evidence to date that fire intensity—not just the presence of fire—is the critical factor in achieving meaningful mortality of honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa).

For decades, land managers in Texas, Oklahoma, and across the southern Great Plains have observed that typical “safe” prescribed fires top-kill mesquite but rarely kill it. The plant simply resprouts vigorously from protected buds beneath the bark (epicormic) and at the root crown (basal). This resilience has made prescribed fire alone an unreliable tool for restoring grass-dominated rangeland once mesquite has become dominant.

The 2022 study directly tested whether dramatically increasing fire energy could overcome those protective mechanisms—even without the added stress of severe drought.

Study Design (Sonora, Texas – 2018–2020)

  • 48 similar-sized honey mesquite trees were selected.
  • Plots received either:
    • Low-energy fire (≈10,000 kJ/m²) – representative of standard prescribed burns using grass/hay fuel, or
    • High-energy fire (≈105,000 kJ/m²) – created by adding cut redberry juniper as fuel to produce prolonged, intense heat.
  • Half the trees in each fire treatment had soil removed from the root crown to test the importance of soil as a bud shield.
  • Trees were monitored for survival and resprouting (basal and epicormic) for two full growing seasons.

Major Results Every Land Manager Should Know

  1. 100% survival after low-energy fire Every mesquite exposed to low-energy fire resprouted and survived the 2-year study period.
  2. 29% apparent mortality after high-energy fire Seven of the 24 mesquites subjected to high-energy fire produced no live resprouts after two growing seasons—an unprecedented kill rate in a controlled experiment without drought stress.
  3. Epicormic (trunk) sprouting virtually eliminated Low-energy fires triggered abundant trunk sprouting (often >100 shoots per tree). High-energy fires almost completely prevented epicormic resprouting—only one tree produced any trunk shoots.
  4. Fewer basal resprouts with high-energy fire Although basal buds (protected by soil) were more heat-tolerant, high-energy fires still reduced the number of basal resprouts by roughly 50–70% in the first post-fire year compared with low-energy fires.
  5. Root-crown exposure helped in year one, but effect faded Excavating soil from the base reduced resprouting the first season, but by year two the difference disappeared.
  6. Results achieved under normal-to-wet conditions The burns were conducted during moderate soil moisture and were followed by above-average rainfall. This demonstrates that extreme fire energy alone—not plant water stress from drought—can significantly impair mesquite recovery.

Practical Implications for Ranchers and Prescribed-Fire Practitioners

  • Standard low-intensity prescribed fire remains largely ineffective for reducing mesquite density or canopy cover.
  • To achieve meaningful mortality, fires must deliver sustained high heat to the cambium and bud zone for several minutes. This typically requires substantial woody fuel loading (e.g., scattered juniper, brush piles, or heavy dead mesquite stems) and weather conditions that support fire spread.
  • Adding targeted woody fuel around individual mesquites or in patches is a practical way to create localized “high-energy” zones even on days when broader landscape conditions are moderate.
  • While complete stand replacement with a single fire is still unlikely, repeated high-energy fires over time—especially when residual dead stems remain standing—should progressively increase cumulative mortality.

In short, the study confirms what many experienced burn practitioners have long suspected: when the goal is mesquite control rather than simple top-kill, hotter is unequivocally better.

Citation: Starns, H.D., Wonkka, C.L., Dickinson, M.B., et al. 2022. Prosopis glandulosa persistence is facilitated by differential protection of buds during low- and high-energy fires. Journal of Environmental Management 303: 114141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114141. Feel free to download a pdf file here!

Safe, effective, and sufficiently intense prescribed fire can be a game-changing tool for restoring grass dominance in mesquite-invaded rangelands. This research gives us the science to justify turning up the heat!!

Fire Up Plant Diversity!

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A recent study from Texas A&M researchers, published in Landscape Ecology, dives into how prescribed fires impact plant diversity in mesquite-oak savannas like those on the Edwards Plateau. By analyzing data from over 288 plots before and after a prescribed fire, the team found that these fires boost local plant diversity, encouraging more species richness and evenness in burned areas. This is especially true in soils with better water-holding capacity, where post-fire regrowth thrives amid the mosaic of burned and unburned patches. But there’s a flip side: fires can reduce beta-diversity, meaning less variation in plant communities across your land, as similar species start dominating post-burn.

The study highlights how soil types and rainfall play starring roles in these outcomes. In areas with deeper, moisture-retaining soils like Kavett silty clay, fires sparked significant gains in forb and grass diversity, helping control woody encroachment from mesquite and juniper while creating prime grazing spots. However, in shallower, drier soils like Tarrant, the effects were muted, underscoring the need to time burns with wetter periods to avoid stressing your vegetation. Precipitation patterns around the 2019 burns, drier than average, further mediated results, showing that fire heterogeneity (those patchy burns) shapes spatial diversity patterns, ultimately supporting a more resilient ecosystem for livestock and wildlife alike.

For ranchers looking to implement pyric-herbivory, combining fire with grazing, this research is a game-changer!! It suggests strategic burns can sustain biodiversity, improve forage quality, and maintain ecosystem services without homogenizing your landscape. Start by mapping your soil types and monitoring rainfall forecasts to maximize benefits. While the study focused on semi-arid savannas, its insights encourage adaptive management: test small-scale burns, observe plant responses, and adjust for your ranch’s unique conditions. In the end, embracing fire thoughtfully could ignite long-term health for your rangeland, turning potential threats into thriving, diverse, opportunities!

For more information on the study led by Jaime Xavier as part of The Prairie Project, please click here!

New Publication! Photosensitization

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Happy Thanksgiving Eve 2025! Tomorrow we eat too much, watch football, and thank the good Lord for another year on rangelands. But before we all disappear into food comas and family chaos, I want to hit you with one quick heads-up that can save you a pile of money and heartache this winter and next spring. A new publication was recently released by Dr. Thomas Hairgrove, Dr. Barron Rector, Dr. Jake Thorne, and Dale Rankin. Click here for the publication!

Photosensitization is sneaking up on herds right now.

Those pretty cool mornings and bright sunny afternoons we’re having? Perfect recipe for trouble if you’ve got lechuguilla, sacahuista, lantana, kochia, kleingrass, goathead, or rain lilies hanging around. Even alfalfa hay or heavy green wheat pasture can set it off when the liver gets damaged and can’t clear the green-pigment toxin (phylloerythrin).

You’ll see it first on the white-faced or light-skinned cattle, sheep, and goats: ears drooping, eyelids swollen, noses and udders red and peeling, animals crowding into any shade they can find or standing belly-deep in the tank. It hits FAST – sometimes in just hours after sun-up on a clear day.

Notice the early signs or you’ll be doctoring animals when you’d rather be deer hunting.

Quick checklist – do this TODAY (yes, even the day before Thanksgiving):

  • Ride or fly the drone over pastures and look for those culprit plants, especially in draws and south slopes where they stay green.
  • Make sure every pasture with light-skinned stock has real shade or a barn they’ll actually use.
  • If you see even one animal with puffy eyes or crusty ears, get them in the barn NOW and call your vet. Every hour in the sun makes it ten times worse.
  • Check liver fluke control – they’re a major player in Type III (the most common kind).

This ain’t regular sunburn. This is skin literally cooking from the inside out because of a toxin + sunlight combo. It’s painful, expensive, and 100% preventable if you stay ahead of it.

So enjoy tomorrow. Eat the extra piece of pecan pie. Hug your people. Tell your wife or husband you love ’em. But before you carve that turkey, take 20 minutes to look at your cattle.

Your future self (and your bank account) will thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks. Stay safe, stay grateful, and give those critters some shade options!

Dry, Warm, Windy, and Fuel.

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  • Drought conditions (D1–D4) increased to 33% of the state, up from 24% four weeks ago; statewide reservoir storage decreased to 73.9% full, down from 75.6% four weeks ago, about 6 percentage points below normal for this time of year.
  • We are now a La Niña Advisory with a 55% chance of La Niña conditions continuing into the January-March season.
  • Most of the state is projected to be in drought over the next three months.

Isn’t it ironic that this last summer presented us with more than above average rainfall, yet not only is 33% of Texas in D1-D4 status, but our statewide reservoir storage is currently at 73.9%.  This becomes increasingly concerning as we watch La Niña take a firm hold with a 55% chance of La Niña conditions continuing into the January-March season.  Not only does this present challenging dormant season grazing management conditions, but wildfire will be at the top of rangeland manager’s concerns.

Bottom line, this winter will suck.  Get your game face on, dust off your drought plan, budget your numbers to see how late into winter/early spring your forage base can survive.  We will always remain optimistic, but we will also plan and prepare.  And with any rangeland management, we will remain adaptive holding strong to the grazing management and soil health principles guiding our practices and decisions.  For a comprehensive Wildfire Ready checklist, please click here and for our Preparing the Ranch publication click here.

Much appreciation to Robert Mace for his insight and wisdom in his outlook + water November 3, 2025 article found at: https://texaspluswater.wp.txstate.edu/.

 

Fighting Fire with Fire: Rx Fire Toolbox to Combat Identified Social Barriers

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Interested in attending our online webinar on July 27, 2020 at 9:00 AM showcasing the research findings from Texas A&M University Dr. Urs Kreuter’s Joint Fire Science Program project:

“Fighting Wildfire with Prescribed Burning in the Southern Great Plains: Social and Regulatory Barriers and Facilitators” (funded by the Bureau of Land Management Joint Fire Science Program (Contract #L16AC00206))??

Please register HERE!