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Sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata) is a non-native legume invading rangelands in the southern Great Plains.� Herbicides offer short-term control with long-term negative effects on native forbs.� Increasing cattle consumption by burning and mowing has been proposed to suppress plant growth but little is known about the effect of digestion on sericea seeds.� Our objective was to identify the effect of cattle digestion on sericea lespedeza seed germination.� Sericea seeds were subjected to one of the following treatments: 1) passage through the complete digestive tract by feeding 500 g of seeds with 1.8 kg of dried distillers grains to 4 steers; 2) digestion in only the rumen by placing in-situ bags containing 100 g of seed in 4 cannulated steers; or 3) no digestion.� At 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 hours post feeding, fecal samples were collected from each steer and sieved for seeds.� Following surface sterilization, seeds were placed on germination paper in a growth chamber with germinated seeds counted on day 3, 7, 14, and 21.� Analysis of variance was used to model germination percentage as a function of exposure type and seed condition.� Full digestion and rumination increased germination (P < 0.002, P < 0.05; respectively) by 17% and 12% over the 4% germination rate of the control seeds.� �The number of seeds in fecal collections declined over time (P < 0.01) and as time in the digestive tract increased, percentage of seeds with an intact endocarp decreased (P < 0.04). Hulled seeds germinated at a 15% greater rate than seeds with intact endocarps (P < 0.05).� We recommend grazing sericea-infested pastures prior to flowering and penning cattle that have been grazing sericea-infested pastures for 4 to 5 days before grazing a sericea-free pasture.