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!

Patch Burning Improves Nutritional Quality of Two Gulf Coast Grasses

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Gulf cordgrass and seacoast bluestem are native warm season grasses that are found in the Texas Coastal Prairies and Marshes ecoregions. Mature Gulf cordgrass has a nutritional value that is considered poor for grazing animals while the seacoast bluestems nutritional value is considered fair to good in spring and early summer. 

Haynes, V.L.; Avila-Sanchez, J.S.; Toomey, A.E.; Ortega-S., J.A.; Campbell, T.A.; Ortega-S., A., Jr.; Rideout-Hanzak, S.; Wester, D.B. Patch Burning Improves Nutritional Quality of Two Gulf Coast Grasses—And Winter Burning Is Better than Summer Burning. Fire 2023, 6, 105. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/fire6030105

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Snow Hill Fire Lessons Learned

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On August 2, 2023, the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office requested assistance from the Texas A&M Forest Service on a grass fire at FM 946 South and Harrell Road. A dominant upper-level ridge of high pressure resided over Texas from the middle of June through early August. These conditions resulted in flash drought conditions, which was only intensified by the well below normal rainfall.

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Prescribed Burn Lessons Learned

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pipeline rupture holeBack in the Spring, personnel were preparing to conduct a prescribed burn in Polk county. The burn boss along with an operator were doing some final prep work to ensure that the containment lines were adequate and the site was ready for the burn.

 

 

 

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National Prescribed Fire Resource Mobilization Strategy

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This summer the National Prescribed Fire Resource Mobilization Strategy was released. The plan calls for six prescribed fire implementation teams to be created that will incorporate prescribed fire practitioners and expertise into a management structure.  This concept would support the implementation of prescribed fire at multiple organizational and complex levels. These teams would be tailored to meet specific needs and facilitate multiple projects simultaneously. Each function that supports the implementation of prescribed burning can be scaled up or down at any level, to ensure that logistical, financial, planning, safety, and public information are staffed accordingly. 

 

 

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Prescribed Burn School April 19 – 21, 2023 – San Angelo, Texas

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Prescribed Burn School April 19 – 21, 2023 – San Angelo, Texas

Dr. Morgan Treadwell is back with her first Prescribed Burn School for 2023 in San Angelo, Texas on April 19 – 21! If you are curious about prescribed fire or would like to get more hands-on experience, this 3-day school is for you! View the agenda here.

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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!

Range Concepts – Texas Ecosystem Analytical Mapper and Seed Mix Map

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This week’s Range Concepts dives into the Texas Ecosystem Analytical Mapper (TEAM) from Texas Parks and Wildlife.  TEAM is an easy-to-use FREE resource that includes soil mapping, plant community descriptions, threatened and endangered species, and much more!

The Seed Mix Map from Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute displays a FREE custom seed mix for an identified area defined by soil type within each ecoregion.

Both of these tools can be synergistically used together to build reseeding recommendations for disturbed rangelands, or for enhanced understanding of rangeland soils and plant communities!

Handout: Texas Ecosystem Analytical Mapper and Seed Mix Map

YouTube Tutorial Video: https://youtu.be/Nd_K7zbr0kg

 

Thinking like a grassland…means thinking BIG!

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Thinking like a grassland.

What does this mean to you?

Well, to Dr. David Augustine from the USDA-ARS Station in Fort Collins, CO and others, it means large-scale movement of many species.  This large-scale movement enables the Great Plains evolved strategies to contend with drought, floods, and even wildfires…in a nutshell….extreme variability in weather resulting in low forage production.

Currently, our pattern of land ownership and use of Great Plains grasslands challenges native species conservation.   For example, too much management is focused at the scale of individual pastures or ranches, limiting opportunities to conserve landscape-scale processes such as fire, animal movement, and metapopulation dynamics.

“Figure 1. Potential natural vegetation of US portion of the North American Great Plains, adapted from Kuchler (1964).”

 

“Estimated extent of 5 major ecoregions of the US Great Plains, subdivided into 14 vegetation communities as mapped by Kuchler (1964; see Fig. 1). For each community, we present the estimated percent of the landscape in each of 10 land cover types based on an integration of cropland data layers (2011e2017) with the 2011 National Land Cover Database.”

 

Opportunities to increase the scale of grassland management include:

  1. Spatial prioritization of grassland restoration and reintroduction of grazing and fire.
  2. Finding creative approaches to increase the spatial scale at which fire and grazing can be applied to address watershed to landscape-scale objectives.
  3. Developing partnerships among government agencies, landowners, businesses, and conservation organizations that enhance cross-jurisdiction management and address biodiversity conservation in grassland landscapes, rather than pastures.

Thinking like a grassland should be pretty easy for us range managers…open spaces, big country, and…thinking big!!

For an in-depth view of “Thinking Like a Grassland: Challenges and Opportunities for
Biodiversity Conservation in the Great Plains of North America”, click on this link: Thinking like a grassland Augustine et al., 2020 REM.