A short time ago a research scientist asked what percentage increase in grass production I expected after completing a brush management program. My response was that I wasn’t qualified to respond with a percentage increase (Not a research scientist), but that the amount of increase in production seemed to be directly related to the length of time an effective graze-rest program had been in place PRIOR to the brush management program.

To understand this thought, one must consider what a healthy plant with a strong root system is capable of. A healthy root system recovers quickly with just about anything you can ‘throw’ at it. Trample it severely, either with animals, heavy equipment, fire and even extended drought conditions and it is amazing what that healthy plant can do to quickly recover. However, if it is in poor condition lacking the energy reserves stored below ground, lacking the extensive-massive root system that is capable of drawing nutrients and water from limited sources, that plant may die from the brush management process that was initiated to increase the grazable production of the rangeland.  Resulting in a negative connotation, making recovery and the hoped for increase in production a slow and many times disastrous result of only creating more denuded bare ground creating a perfect place for the brush to germinate and become thicker than when the original ‘brush management’ program was initiated. Once again, how do you create those healthy plants prior to the brush management program? Graze-Rest-Graze-Rest it is essential.

The photo below tells several stories.

1. Preparing for brush management establishing healthy grassland prior to it.
2. The beginnings of rocks disappearing
3. The starting effects of prickly pear control with the use of the ‘native’ prickly pear beetle. (Yellow dots on the prickly pear pads.)

THE BETTER IT GETS THE FASTER IT GETS BETTER

For many grassland managers brush management is the costliest of all the management options. Those operators that have a substantial outside income are, as a rule, the only ones that can afford to ‘Control the Brush’, without the help of various government ‘help’ programs. Regardless of the source of money, understanding why the brush is an ever-increasing problem, despite the long-term efforts of ‘controlling’ it, is essential to developing a viable program of brush management. Long term continuous-sometimes heavy grazing, loss of the fire regime and perhaps the ever-changing climate are all factors in creating the brush issues many face on rangeland. Perhaps the combination of these ‘causes’ creates a multiplying factor to the brush issue.

The first thing a rangeland manager can do to change this paradigm is to be certain he has adapted an effective graze-rest program so the plants can survive and flourish after the brush management plan is initiated. The importance of creating this grazing management process PRIOR to the brush management practice cannot be over emphasized. The results of such a program have been shown to be dramatic.

Stay tuned as in the following weeks we will discuss several brush management issues both good and perhaps not so good.

The photo below shows even with heavy cover of brush, some grass plants are established. When a good grazing program is established prior to removing brush those grass plants are given the opportunity to flourish. Making the brush removal effort effective in grassland improvement.

THE BETTER IT GETS THE FASTER IT GETS BETTER