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I've never understood.....

Yanuck

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
4,341
Location
Nebraska
why people don't burn or spray sagebrush, when the results are obvious.....any area in the pictures that are grass, burned several years ago, and has looked like this every year since. To me it is a big waste of grass and fire hazard waiting to happen, the Indians had the right idea with prairie fires!!! :???: :?

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Environmentalists think sagebrush is diappearing in this area. Its's everywhere.

I totally agree to get rid of it in some areas since it uses up all the water. In some areas around here I think it would hurt the ground as the heat and rocks would bake the soil anyway and grass couldn't grow. This area was and sometimes still is way overgrazed, so the grass will never be real good.

In the old days when the irrgation project was coming in, people would over water the sagebrush for the first year and it would kill it so they could get in and break ground easier.
 
I wondered the same thing while out in wyoming...what grass they do have is good grass, but that sagebrush sure takes up some valuable grazing ground. I'm sure that there is plenty of area's that they could leave the sagebrush as to not totally wipe it out...For those of you who deal with sagebrush what do you think about it? :???:
 
Some sage is useful. But the keyword is some. Most enviros want nothing but brush and cedars and absolutely no non-native grasses. But wildlife are usually found on old or new burns, chained areas, and spots where re-growth happens. Sage in this country is helpful as a browse in winter for antelope, deer and cattle. It controls erosion in spots grasses won't hold the soil. And it provides habitat for grouse and smaller critters. But vast ranges covered in brush soon become stagnant and the grass there gets wolfy and dormant. Nature used to send thunderstorms and continually burnt off patches. Then the grass would compete with brush and actually hold it's own. But we run out and put out every fire for the past 50 years and change nature's way and scratch our heads when giant infernos destroy hundreds of thousands of acres. And chaining is a four letters word nowadays. But those pictures prove why burns are wonderful tools. Same with responsible grazing. Regrowth = healthy, nutritional, vibrant, natural range land. Versus old, dormant, poorer nutrition, less palateable and more likely to burn out of control. But try selling that to the enviro movement or some of the folks in government management who follow that school of thought.
 

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