Cheatgrass vs Mule Deer

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Jimss

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Drilling cheatgrass infested areas:

Chris, I agree 100% with your post above. Most of the properties where I work have decent remant native species and native seed in the soil. It's an entirely different ball game in areas where dense cheatgrass has been around for a long time and natives no longer exist. It's pretty much like starting from square 1 in those situations.

From my experience, it seems like broadleaf native species tend to be more resilient and annual grass species are super sensitive/susceptible to low rates of Rejuvra. With that said, I usually wait at least 2 growing seasons before drilling perennial grass species into Rejuvra. I've had great results in our area drilling native grass after that time. I'm not sure if that same time interval holds true in other areas with different precipitation and soils.

We have drilled a triticale cover crop into Rejuvra with decent results. We drilled 1 year after treatment. Triticale has pretty big seed and is capable of emerging from fairly deep in the soil profile. As you mentioned above, Rejuvra stays within the first couple of centimeters in the soil. We've drilled triticale fairly deep. Tricale would offer a little more time for the Rejuvra to break down before drilling. There may be other cover crop species that may work in your area.

Your activated charcoal idea may also work? Unfortunately, I haven't tried it yet.

Another option we've used several times is to use matrix or glyphosate dormant treatments until drilled grass and other species are established. Once happy with the drilled native species stand it's possible to spray Rejuvra. It's a matter of timing when spraying dormant timings using these 2 herbicides. Plateau may also be an option but doesn't seem to work very well in our area on cheatgrass.

A lot of areas we spray it's too rough and rocky to drill. We still have remnant native species present in low densities. Some of these areas may have a history of disturbance or other factors. I often wait until year 2 or 3 to broadcast seed different desired native seed. Some native annual and perennial broadleaf specie's seed tend to come right through Rejuvra the first year after treatment. It's possible to seed these the same year Rejuvra is sprayed. It may be possible to figure out particular native species in your area that work. Obviously, it would be wise to try some of these things on a small-scale at first. I am constantly stripping mature native seed off native plants in the late summer through winter and spreading them in these areas that tend to take more time to respond or recover. I have compiled a lot of data over the years to figure some of these strategies out.

Hopefully some of this helps. It gets a little complicated in a hurry if there aren't remnant desirable species that still exist in cheatgrass. I'm always amazed at how long some of those native species' seed stays dormant in the soil waiting for the right conditions to emerge.
 
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Jimss

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I thought I would add a few more thoughts and photos to this post.

The "proof is in the putting" when it comes to cheatgrass habitat improvement projects.
Healthy does equate to healthy fawns with the increase in nutrition and productivity of forage where cheatgrass is controlled. We are not only seeing larger sized fawns but also twins in the 500 to 1,000+ acre areas we've removed the cheatgrass. It's great to reap the benefits!

I've enclosed a few fawn photos taken on properties where cheatgrass was controlled here in Colorado. Some were taken with game cameras set up to monitor mule deer use and preference of cheatgrass infested vs adjacent sprayed sites.

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Takre a look at the size of this spotted fawn in spring 2023!

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Jumbo fawn November 2023.

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Notice the size and bellies on the fawns in the 2 photos above! They look almost as big as yearling does! These aren't corn-fed Midwest deer!

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Healthy twin fawns on another site's winter range in December 2023.

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Another set of healthy twins already taking advantage of the new shrub growth where cheatgrass was sprayed. Notice the contrasting shrubs (sprayed) vs cheatgrass (nonsprayed) in the open meadow in the upper left side of this photo (spring 2022). This was year 1 after a 1,000 acre Rejuvra application.

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Also seeing healthy elk calves. This one was likely only a few hours old (spring 2023).
 
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Man do we ever need this in SW Montana. There’s large areas of foothill winter range that have been totally dominated by cheat grass. Tough from a management perspective when it’s broken up private sub divisions/ranches /fed public/state public.


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Jimss

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It often takes pro-active collaborative efforts when crossing different property boundaries. This may be possible with strategies that include large, collaborative grant funding with cost-share incentives.

I know Sublette and Sheridan Counties in Wyoming have completed several massive projects similar to this. In Sheridan County they’ve done an incredible amount of ventenata, medusahead, and cheatgrass work across many different property borders. Sublette County has pretty much hit cheatgrass control on a broad scale head-on.

I can give you a couple contact names if you want to pm me.
 

dtrkyman

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How big of an issue is cheatgrass down in New Mexico? Our deer herd is definitely struggling in most areas of the state.

I did some land management in the Midwest, our biggest issue was/is honeysuckle, did quite a bit of work on some properties cutting and spraying that junk!
 
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Jimss

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I don't spend much time in New Mexico but I'm sure cheatgrass doesn't stop at the border of Colorado and NM!
 

swampfox

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Jun 7, 2019
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This work is awesome to see, thank you for your efforts. I hunt a lot of Chukar so spend a bunch of time and cover a lot of miles in cheatgrass and almost never see deer. And each time a fire hits it’s only cheatgrass that grows back. While it won’t be great for the Chukar hunting, I’d love to see these places restored for the deer to return.
 
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