Robel Pole

[WyomingRancher]

Is anyone familiar with the Robel Pole method for measuring forage utilization? Pros/cons???

http://ces.uwyo.edu/PUBS/MP111_10.pdf

The FS is thinking of incorporating this method, but I'm not sold after doing some research:

http://www.wylr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=23

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this .

 

[jodywy]

I would skip useing a Robel Pole , too judgmental.... walk a transect and measure with a tape…

 

[Frank in West Dakota]

They've been trying to shove that robel pole down our throats for 10 yrs. I've opposed it from the beginning, and still oppose it! It's designed for tall grass prairie, not what we have in the western Dakota's and farther west, this is short grass country (buffalo grass) not tall grass.
One bad thing about the FS, everything they go by is out of a book. You can not manage grasslands out of a book, every area is different, every ranch is different, and it's different every year, nothing is consistent.
The ranger we had that introduced us to the robel pole was transferred to Wyo, so WyomingRancher, we might be dealing with the same person! :roll:

 

[jodywy]

not on our permit, but use to have one on this allotment, the range con has hissy fits when he and the permittees are walking and measuring transects, and gets upset at all the pictures in the file.
Yet permittees have caught him up there on his days off using a Robel Pole collecting his own data. He wrote up a new management plan, which the permittees, county commissioners, Stock Growers all fought and the regional office turned down.