Get reliable rangeland science

We have used Dr Del Despain's VGS software with ruggedized tablet computers for a number of years on the Arizona Strip District of the BLM as part of the Cooperative Range Monitoring Project with the University of Arizona. The Arizona Strip is a large, remote, and expansive landscape in northern Arizona above the Grand Canyon, east of Las Vegas. From a practical standpoint, we need data collection tools that will stand up to a wide range of weather extremes and that we can depend on once we leave the office to go to the field. The VGS system is user friendly and most of the tablet computers have held up well in the field under our conditions. But the aspect of using this data collection system that I want to discuss is that of allowing us to input, summarize, and apply many years of range monitoring data we had collected prior to development of the software. In the cooperative project between the university and BLM, project personnel have input existing range monitoring data into VGS so that we now have this historical data at our fingertips in the office or the field. Similar to the experience that the USFS or NRCS has with VGS, we feel that this ability enhances our discussions with permittees. We are now able to more easily and efficiently compare range monitoring data with other important information such as actual use or precipitation.