Cheatgrass vs Mule Deer

[Jimss]

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.

 

[Jimss]

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.



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



Jumbo fawn November 2023.



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!



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



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.



Also seeing healthy elk calves. This one was likely only a few hours old (spring 2023).

 

[Jake Larsen]

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.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jimss]

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.

 

[Jimss]

Jake, I sent you a personal message.

 

[dtrkyman]

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!

 

[Jimss]

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

 

[dtrkyman]

Wasn't sure if it did well down in the desert?

 

[swampfox]

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.

 

[Bull_n_heat]

Saw an interesting article today that I thought was worth sharing here about how much cheatgrass infestation essentially renders habitat useless to mule deer. It was surprisingly low - about 20%. Keep fighting the good fight @Jimss!!

Mule deer could lose half their northeast Wyoming habitat to cheatgrass without help - WyoFile

New study shows deer avoid cheatgrass-covered areas, but authors also provide hope.

wyofile.com

 

[shootnrun]

I find this topic super interesting. Although SE WA mule deer face extreme predator issues, I have also noticed yellow star thistle has taken over large swaths of the canyons the deer used to frequent. Not exactly the same, but topic adjacent. When I was in college at WSU a professor was trying to get a study going to do prescribed burns to kill it off when the buds had opened but before it dropped the seeds, as the seeds are heat resistive when the buds are closed. But I dont know that he ever got any traction. The timing he told me would have to be early October. Which would obviously have contention on public lands..

 

[midwestcowboy]

Any negative impact on fisheries or water quality in watersheds where Rejuvra was used?

 

[Bull_n_heat]

Any negative impact on fisheries or water quality in watersheds where Rejuvra was used?

Not that I know of presently, but I'm far from an expert on it. Usually the "broader ecological effects" research lags a little behind the effectiveness work, so we'll have to wait on that. There's almost certainly been a rash of toxicology reserach with lab critters to examine effects, but how those actually manifest in the wild will take time to evaluate (if, and hopefully when, folks examine that).

However, I think the application rate is pretty light and it's usually in relatively dry areas that are not likely to have huge washes of pesticides from the landscape down to streams and rivers. That might be my optimism peaking through though.

 

[Chris in TN]

Herbicide use for habitat improvement fascinates me and I've employed a number of different things here at home (eta: in the southeast) and have helped other people do the same over the years, but not for cheatgrass.

Is this the same cheatgrass that Aldo Leopold talked about in ASCA?

Do you have many people oppose your work because of general (uneducated) fears of the use of herbicides as being 'poison'? That used to be a huge thing in the east whether for habitat restoration or utility ROW work or even a lot of agricultural uses. People are terrified of Glyphosate but don't grasp how far we've came since we used to put a half gallon of Atrazine and a quart of 2,4-D on our corn every spring just to get it out of the ground.

Also, I had no idea that there was any significant wide-scale herbicide use on western public lands. I always figured the scale was too large to be effective. So this is super neat for me to see.

 

[Harvey_NW]

I saw this cattle ranchers post on Facebook recently and thought it was very interesting-

 

[mtnrunner260]

I saw this cattle ranchers post on Facebook recently and thought it was very interesting-
View attachment 943391

Did they provide any pictures?

 

[RockAndSage]

Now that Rejuvra has a grazing tolerance on its label there has been a lot more research and acres being sprayed.

There are quite a few professors across the Western US that have multiple graduate students working on different Rejuvra and other cheatgrass projects. It's really nice when all of the research tends to overlap and share the same positive results! Our annual Western Society of Weed Science Conference has been overloaded with cheatgrass presentations the past 3 years. The next WSWS meeting is this spring in Denver, Colorado.

With all of the talk across the country about the decline in mule deer I thought I would start a fairly detailed post about some of our work in Colorado. It's available on the MonsterMuley website with the title Cheatgrass vs Mule Deer. There has been a pretty good discussion. I am trying to get the word out to as many land managers across the country as possible. The long-term benefits to mule deer, mule deer habitat, and other wildlife are amazing!

Here is the link:

Cheatgrass vs Mule Deer | Mule Deer

There's been a number of posts recently with concern about the decline in mule deer across the Western US. I thought I would share some of the results we've generated the past couple years for long-term cheatgrass control. Some of the oldest long-term areas we sprayed 7+ years ago still have...

www.monstermuleys.info

Those slides are pretty encouraging, thanks for sharing. Cheatgrass is hell on Sage Grouse too, and I imagine other birds, so it would be great to see how it works from those angles. Even just the burn behavior changes should help though.

 

[Harvey_NW]

Did they provide any pictures?

I was able to search and find them.

 

[Jimss]

Here is an interesting article about a recent publication about mule deer habitat loss by cheatgrass:

Invasive Grasses Threaten Mule Deer but Strategic Action Can Turn the Tide, UW Research Suggests

If the spread of cheatgrass and other annual invasive grasses is left unchecked, mule deer will lose key habitat in northeast Wyoming, a new University of Wyoming study suggests.

www.uwyo.edu

To read the full paper, visit www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550742425000995

If the spread of cheatgrass and other annual invasive grasses is left unchecked, mule deer will lose key habitat in northeast Wyoming, a new University of Wyoming study suggests.


The study, published this week in the journal Rangeland Ecology & Management, found that mule deer avoid places where invasive annual grasses, such as cheatgrass, are overtaking sagebrush and grassland habitats. If the spread of these weeds goes unchecked, the study predicts that mule deer may lose more than half of their high-quality habitat in northeast Wyoming in the next two decades.

Fortunately, the research also shows that targeted management of invasive annual grasses can reverse this trend.

“This is one of the first research studies to clearly assess the impacts of invasive annual grasses on mule deer habitat selection,” says Kurt Smith, lead author of the new study and a senior research scientist at UW. “The picture is grim if we sit back and do nothing. But there’s plenty of hope that we can maintain big game populations if we strategically treat cheatgrass and other invasives.”

Mule deer rely on healthy sagebrush and other native perennial plants for food. Cheatgrass and other invasive grasses are less nutritious and provide poor-quality habitat for this big game, especially in the summer and fall, the researchers note.

To track how mule deer used the landscape, including in areas containing invasive grasses, Smith and his colleagues analyzed the movement of more than 100 animals with GPS collars. Then, they overlaid the animals’ movements with the type of vegetation cover using the Rangeland Analysis Platform.

Mule deer prefer habitats with low levels of invasive annual grasses, the researchers found. However, once invasive annual grasses covered more than 13 percent of sagebrush lands, mule deer began to use those areas less. When invasive grasses covered more than 20 percent of the land, mule deer strongly avoided those areas.

After compiling deer movement and vegetation data, the researchers forecast what the future might look like under two scenarios: one where invasive grass continued to spread across the sagebrush biome at current rates, and another where active management actions, such as applying herbicides, reduced the weeds and allowed native perennials to recover.

If nothing is done to protect core sagebrush areas from the spread of these weeds, invasive annual grasses could potentially reduce high-quality mule deer habitat across northeast Wyoming by 62 percent in the next 20 years, the results suggest.

“Mule deer are already facing habitat loss and fragmentation across the West. Doing nothing isn’t an option,” says Jerod Merkle, the Knobloch Professor of Migration Ecology and Conservation at UW and senior author of the study. “Luckily, we now have the tools, the science and the broad support to combat the spread of invasive annual grasses in Wyoming and beyond.”

According to the new research, if targeted treatments are applied in places already prioritized by existing conservation frameworks like the Sagebrush Conservation Design, the potential loss of habitat can be completely reversed.

These frameworks prioritize treating areas with only low to moderate levels of invasive grasses, as well as places near still-intact, core sagebrush landscapes.

“The predicted maintenance of high-quality mule deer habitat is stunning if we proactively defend core sagebrush from invasive annual grasses,” says Brian Mealor, director of UW’s Institute for Managing Invasive Grasses Invading Natural Ecosystems (IMAGINE) and co-author of the study. “It gives a lot of hope that we can protect wildlife while also improving rangelands as a whole.”

Partners across the West are collaborating on novel, win-win solutions for landowners and land managers interested in conserving sagebrush rangelands and the wildlife they support.

For instance, IMAGINE and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Working Lands for Wildlife provide tools, funding and technical support for managing invasive annual grasses. The Wyoming Migration Initiative at UW -- in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey, state wildlife management agencies and tribes -- provides migration maps and other science-based strategies that help prioritize where to treat weeds to best benefit the West’s iconic big game species.

“Sagebrush rangelands support rural economies through ranching, hunting and recreation,” says Jeremy Maestas, an ecologist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. “This research clearly shows that now is the time to defend and restore the sagebrush biome, not just for mule deer but for all of the people and wildlife who live here.”

The research was supported by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Working Lands for Wildlife, Western EcoSystems Technology Inc., the Knobloch Family Foundation and UW.


To read the full paper, visit www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550742425000995.



For questions, email Merkle at [email protected] or call (307) 766-5448.

 

[Jimss]

Here is another publication in the Journal of Range Mangement entitled:

Long-term cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) control increases shrub leader growth and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) visitation​

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190052825000380

• •
  Invasive annual grasses like cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) are widespread and abundant in western North America, where they compete with native plants that are important components of wildlife habitat.
• •
  Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) are an important wildlife species that typically rely on woody shrubs for forage during winter months.
• •
  Competition from cheatgrass may limit shrub growth and reduce winter forage availability for mule deer, with potential negative effects on mule deer survival and population growth. Thus, effective cheatgrass management may reduce competition and increase winter forage availability for mule deer.
• •
  Herbicide application to control cheatgrass increased shrub leader growth, and data collected with camera traps suggest mule deer may preferentially use herbicide-treated areas during winter.