Drought is a common occurrence on semi-arid grazing lands of the Great Plains. In this region, grazing mismanagement has resulted in less diverse and productive plant communities, potentially affecting resilience to drought. Land managers can be better prepared for drought by adopting practices that increase plant diversity. The objective of this study is to demonstrate differing levels of resilience in high and low diversity plant communities in response to droughts occurring in different seasons and for different durations. High diversity and low diversity plant communities were selected on privately managed ranches in the Sandhills (sandy soils) and Central Loess Hills (loamy soils) of Nebraska. Replicated plots were established within each plant community type and location, and the following treatments were applied during the 2014 growing season: (1) spring drought, April 1- June 30, (2) summer drought, June 1- Aug 31, (3) average seasonal precipitation, and (4) ambient precipitation. Rainout shelters were constructed to limit precipitation received on drought treatments to 50% of the 30-year seasonal average. Initial ground cover and relative species composition of each plot was estimated using a line-intercept method before the spring drought was applied. Standing biomass was clipped in September as an estimate of above-ground plant production by plant functional group. We hypothesize that ground cover and plant production of Sandhills sites and low diversity communities will be more negatively impacted by drought than Loess Hills sites and high diversity communities. The first year results of this 3-year study will be presented and discussed.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.