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!

The Long-Term Cost of Overgrazing—and How to Avoid It

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Rangeland health is shaped by cumulative management decisions rather than single events. Grazing practices that consider timing, recovery, and monitoring support long-term productivity and resilience.

Avoiding overgrazing requires consistency, observation, and flexibility. Just as our environmental conditions change (whiplash drought), so must our grazing strategies.

Connecting the Pieces

Understanding overgrazing, reading rangeland condition, and applying recovery-based grazing strategies work together. Each piece informs the next, creating a management approach that responds to what rangeland needs.

When these elements are aligned, rangelands are better equipped to handle drought, variable weather, fires, woody plant encroachment, and changing conditions.

Long-Term Benefits of Intentional Grazing

Over time, well-managed grazing supports stronger plant communities, improved soil cover, and greater forage stability. These benefits accumulate gradually, reinforcing the importance of patience and long-term thinking.

Stewardship Over Short-Term Gains

Successful rangeland management prioritizes sustainability over short-term use. Grazing decisions made with long-term outcomes in mind help ensure rangelands remain productive and functional for future generations. These strategies also create more flexibility across the operation because pastures are kept productive, healthy, and ready for the next grazing rotation despite challenging environmental conditions.

What Long-Term Success Looks Like on Rangeland

Long-term rangeland success is not defined by a single good year, but by consistent patterns over time. Healthy rangelands tend to show stable plant communities, adequate ground cover, and the ability to recover after grazing or environmental stress.

Successful grazing systems remain flexible. Stocking rates, timing, and pasture use are adjusted based on current conditions rather than fixed plans or continuous use. Monitoring becomes a regular habit, allowing managers to respond early instead of reacting after damage has occurred.

Over time, this approach supports more reliable forage production, improved soil protection, and greater resilience during drought and variable weather. Long-term success is built through intentional decisions made season after season, with the rangeland guiding every single management choice.

Grazing Isn’t the Problem. Unmanaged Pressure Is.

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Grazing is often viewed as a disturbance or impediment to rangeland health, but it is just the opposite! When applied intentionally, it can support plant diversity and ecosystem function. The key is managing pressure, timing, and recovery rather than applying constant use in a continuous grazing system.  Even if managers are conservatively or low-stocked, continuous grazing is a recipe for poor rangeland condition.  

Grazing strategies that prioritize rest allow plants to recover and strengthen root systems. 

Rest and Recovery Matter 

Plants need time after grazing to regrow leaves and rebuild energy reserves that sustains populations during drought and dormancy. Without sufficient recovery, repeated grazing weakens native perennial grasses and reduces long-term productivity and diversity. 

Planned grazing systems incorporate rest periods that match plant growth patterns and environmental conditions. 

Managing Pressure, Not Just Numbers 

Stocking rate alone does not determine grazing success. Duration and distribution of grazing pressure often have a greater impact on plant health than animal numbers. 

Adjusting pasture size, rotation timing, and water placement can help distribute grazing pressure more evenly across the landscape. 

Grazing as a Management Tool 

When managed properly, grazing can reduce excess vegetation, promote plant diversity, and support soil health. Used intentionally, livestock become a win-win synergistic balance that contributes to rangeland resilience rather than degradation. 

When Does Grazing Become Overgrazing?

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Overgrazing is often attributed to having too many animals in the pasture. In reality, overgrazing is less about the number of livestock and more about how long plants are consistently exposed to grazing pressure. On West Texas rangelands, the timing and duration of grazing and rest from grazing play a much larger role in native, perennial grass health than simple stocking numbers. 

Understanding what overgrazing actually looks like is the first step toward preventing long-term damage and supporting resilient rangeland systems. 

What Is Overgrazing? 

Overgrazing occurs when plants are grazed repeatedly without adequate time to recover. A pasture can be overgrazed even with a small number of animals if those animals remain in one area too long. When plants are repeatedly defoliated (grazed), they lose the ability to regrow effectively and rebuild root systems, steadily shrinking in mass and function. 

Functioning rangelands depend on periods of rest. Without recovery time from grazing, plant vigor declines, soil cover decreases, and erosion risk and bare ground increases. 

Overgrazing vs. Heavy Grazing 

Heavy grazing and overgrazing are not the same thing. Heavy grazing refers to short-term use where plants are grazed intensively but then allowed time to recover. Overgrazing happens when grazing pressure continues without rest, and plants are repeatedly defoliated.  

This distinction is important because grazing can be used as a management tool when paired with recovery. Problems arise when grazing pressure is constant rather than planned and rotated. 

Early Signs of Overgrazing 

Early indicators of overgrazing include reduced plant height, loss of preferred forage species, and increasing bare ground. Over time, these changes can lead to reduced forage production and increased weed or invasive species presence- including woody species establishment like honey mesquite and redberry juniper 

Monitoring these early signals from your rangeland grasses should spur managers to adjust grazing before long-term and irrecoverable damage occurs. 

 

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!!

Prickly Pear and the South American Cactus Moth

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Cactus Moth InfographicTexas is known for its rugged landscapes and iconic, opportunistic, and problematic prickly pear. While these plants readily provide headaches to the grazing manager, oftentimes pear also serves as food and habitat for wildlife and is a native species on Texas rangelands. However, the South American Cactus Moth has been found and confirmed in five Texas counties. 

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Non-Target Woody Plant Response to Herbicides

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Ranchers in West Texas frequently encounter a double-decker challenge with intense canopy coverage from honey mesquite and dense pricklypear in the understory. Synergistic broadcast herbicide applications are commonly employed to tackle these layered problematic, opportunistic, and abundant species. However, it is crucial to recognize the potential for unintended consequences on nontarget woody plant species. A recent study delved into the effects of various herbicide treatments on both target and nontarget woody plant species.

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Patch Burn Grazing: An Economic Analysis of Pyric Herbivory Rangeland Management by Cow-Calf Producers

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Patch-burn grazing is a practice that requires an understanding of the interaction of fire and grazing (pyric herbivory) (for more information check out www.theprairieproject.org). It divides a pasture into pieces/patches, with one burn rotationally each year. It helps control woody plant encroachment and provides high-quality forages. Despite these known benefits, the adoption of this practice by ranchers has been slow and limited. This study focused on the benefits of patch-burn grazing by estimating the costs and long-term economic benefits. Additionally, researchers compared patch-burning to traditional applications of prescribed fire burning fenceline to fenceline or an entire pasture at once with a 3-year fire return interval. 

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Stability of C3 and C4 Grass Patches in Woody Encroached Rangeland after Fire and Simulated Grazing

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In the western portion of the southern Great Plains, grasslands are defined as “southern mixed”, with warm season or C4 mid-grasses being dominant and cool season or C3 short-grasses in less frequent densities. As woody plant encroachment increasingly dominates, the productive warm season C4 grasses begin to decline with less abundance on the landscape and even less productivity. Woody plant dominance also reduces plant diversity eroding heterogeneity in the mixed-grass prairie. Recently, researchers measured the effects of various combinations of spring clipping (mimicked cattle grazing) and prescribed fire treatments over an 8 year period on Texas wintergrass and buffalograss with the overall objective of reducing Texas wintergrass abundance and increasing warm season C4 mid-grass species and diversity.

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Impact of Goats on Cattle Diet Composition

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Did you know that having goats in your pasture could potentially complement the existing cattle operation while boosting livestock productivity and plant community diversity? Goats normally prefer and preferentially consume various types of woody and forb species more so than cattle do, and that their presence in a pasture does not alter what the cattle preferentially select to eat.

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