Grazing animals represent a sustainable tool to control invasive species like medusahead (Taeniantherum caput-medusae (L.) Nevski), although the low nutritional quality of this weed constrains its use by herbivores. We hypothesized that the nutrients from Siberian wheatgrass and forage kochia provide the appropriate nutritional context to enhance use of medusahead by cattle.� Beef cows (12) were assigned to two treatments in 6 plots (2 animals/plot) on private land in the scablands of eastern Washington: 1) Treatment animals grazed improved rangeland for 45 min/d and then they grazed medusahead-infested rangeland (SUP; n=3 plots) for 8 h/d and 2) Control animals grazed medusahead-infested rangeland only for 8 h/d (CTRL; n=3 plots) during 10 consecutive days in October of 2016.� Individual heifers were focally sampled for successive 5-min periods through the bite count method for use of medusahead (MH), annual grasses (AG), perennial grasses (PG), green forbs (GF), dried forbs (DF), and thatch (TH) in the plant community. Preliminary data shows that grazing the improved pasture (SUP) slightly enhanced the subsequent use of MH in the medusahead-infested plant community relative to the CTRL (31.6 � 4.4 vs 27.3 � 3.7% of bites/day, respectively). There was no difference between treatments in grazing of AG, GF, DF, and TH, but SUP animals also utilized medusahead in the improved pasture (42.4 � 0.09% bites/day, respectively) and consumed less PG in medusahead-infested rangeland than CTRL animals (6.4 � 1.5% vs. 13.1 � 2.8% of bites/day, respectively). Preference for PG and reluctance to consume MH is often the reason for medusahead spread. The reduced consumption of PG and the increased preference for MH by SUP cows contributes to reverse this trend. Therefore, rotations from improved pastures to medusahead-infested pastures may be used as a tool to mitigate medusahead spread in the invaded scablands of eastern Washington.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.