ONTARIO, Ore. — In 2015, the Soda Fire burned 280,000 acres in southwest Idaho and southeast Oregon, including large swathes of Malheur County.
One of the biggest contributors to the fire — and others like it — are invasive grasses, otherwise known as “fine fuels.” Not only do fine fuels worsen wildfires, they can also out-compete native plants that make up the unique biodiversity of the Northern Great Basin, where Malheur County is located.
Sergio Arispe, who’s been with the Oregon State University Extension Service since 2014, knows all about the problem of invasive grasses and their effect on the local cattle industry. That’s because Arispe’s number one priority as an associate professor with Extension and research appointments is to evaluate what is important to the community he serves.
Arispe often thinks about wildfires, invasive grasses and public lands — three vital concerns for a county whose ranchers rely on healthy rangeland for grazing. Almost three-quarters of Malheur County is designated as public land.
When community members and the Vale District Office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management reached out to Arispe asking for help to manage fine fuels on public lands, he was more than happy to oblige.
The subsequent eight years of research has been incredibly successful with contracted grazing beyond what was traditionally permitted that reduces combustible plant materials.
Arispe has been awarded $515,132 from the Fuels Management and Community Fire Assistance Program — within the Oregon/Washington Bureau of Land Management —to continue working on the project and incorporate drone sensing technology.
Intricate ecosystem
“Within the Northern Great Basin where we are in Malheur County, you go out see birds of prey, apex predators like pumas and bobcats,” Arispe said. “You also see herbivores, elk, pronghorn antelope, smaller bird species, water fowl and pheasants. You find insects, all the way to bacteria and moss.”
The ecosystem is a special ecological and recreational resource, he said. “It’s just a very active, intricate ecosystem that allows people like you and people like me to go out there, take a deep breath, and really appreciate the beauty.”
Seventy-seven percent of Malheur County is rangeland. The cattle and dairy industries make up 59% of the agricultural products sold, by value. Malheur has the second largest cattle industry in the state.
Rangeland forage and feed costs are big concerns of Malheur cattle producers.
Arispe hoped that he could solve two issues at once: reducing winter feed cost and wildfire risk. He enlisted partner cattlemen to try answering the question: Would cattle eat invasive, fire-fueling grasses during the fall and winter seasons?
The cattle grazed during the fall, the dormant season for the native plants. This means the native plants were not experiencing new growth and were therefore more resilient.
The experiment to extend the grazing season paid off. Over the past eight years, Arispe’s research has led to the removal by grazing of over 6,000 tons of fine fuels from the ecosystem and saved his partner ranchers a total of $50,000 in feed costs during the contracted fall-winter grazing period.
Perennial bunch grasses are native, create better habitat and cause less risk of wildfire. “They are ideal grasses that we want.”
Notably, the grazing didn’t harm the native plants. “We're not seeing any negative effects on the perennial bunch grass community,” Arispe said.
Arispe published these successes in Rangeland Ecology & Management with partners from Boise State University, University of Idaho, Brigham Young University, USDA-Agricultural Research Services, and the University of Nevada, Reno.
The next step, funded by Arispe’s new grant, will allow him to learn more about the relationship between cattle grazing behavior and the growth of different plant types on public lands.
“We are going to use drone sensors to look at different stages of growth to improve degraded sagebrush,” said Arispe.
