Daddy et al. looked at herbaceous plant and big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) cover, root biomass, and soil water in northwestern New Mexico at three sites that had different historical grazing use. No differences were found between big sagebrush cover in the different grazing treatments. Herbaceous biomass and cover where greater in the moderately grazed site than the heavily grazed and protected areas. Herbaceous production on the heavily grazed site was predominately threeawn (Aristida sp.) and cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum). Both blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and galleta (Hilaria jamesii) were more productive on the grazed site than on the protected site. The authors felt that perhaps 21 years of exclusion was not long enough for the protected site to recover from intense grazing. The heavily grazed site always had the lowest soil moisture. Root biomass was constant between grazing intensities. However, root distribution differed. Grazed sites had about 80% of root biomass in the top 40 cm of soil while only 40% of root biomass was found in this depth for the protected site.
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