Science Says Post-Fire Grazing on Rangelands Is Not Harmful

Kathy worked with the Bureau of Land Management for 12 years before founding Livestock for Landscapes in 2004. Her twelve years at the agency allowed her to pursue her goal of helping communities find ways to live profitably AND sustainably in their environment. She has been researching and working with livestock as a land management tool for over a decade. When she's not helping farmers, ranchers and land managers on-site, she writes articles, and books, and edits videos to help others turn their livestock into landscape managers.

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June 8, 2020

2 Comments

Matt Ricketts says:

August 1, 2017 at 8:40 am

Your article highlights that ranchers do not need to defer grazing post fire, but does not indicate what species of plants you are talking about. These studies focus on increaser species and not the bunchgrass decreasers that are taller growing, more productive during drought, and are the site dominant species in the potential native plant community. These bunchgrasses, are sensitive to grazing following fire, and especially in a ponderosa pine/bunchgrass habitat type following fire, deferment is needed to establish these grasses after the forest canopy is removed. The research is correct for the plants they measured, but extremely misleading to conclude that the entire mixed grass prairie area follows suit. I could give many examples but will just conclude by saying: this article should have indicated that this study refers to western wheatgrass, needle and threadgrass, blue grama, prairie junegrass, threadleaf sedge, and Sandberg bluegrass and there is little to no effect with moderate grazing immediately post fire on these plant communities. Thank you.
- Kathy Voth says:
  
  August 1, 2017 at 8:54 am
  
  Excellent point, Matt. I had hoped that I’d covered that in the “BUT” section. I will go back and do a clean up. Thank you!

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