Restoration of burned or degraded sagebrush steppe commonly requires seeding desirable perennial species in fall. Seeds are drilled or aerially broadcast and often fail to establish due to unfavorable moisture and temperature conditions. Failure results in weed dominance and recurrent wildfires. Recent research indicates that seeds planted in fall may germinate with high winter seedling mortality. To help guide seed treatments such as abscisic acid (ABA), a plant hormone that delays germination, we analyzed fall, winter, and spring seedbed temperatures for 3-4 years on 14 sagebrush steppe sites, 8 of which had been encroached by pinyon and juniper trees. Sites were representative of the central to northern Great Basin. These seedbeds predominately have many short frost periods from October through March. For example, there was an average of 58 frost periods < 1 day long and only 1.9 periods 1-2 days long at 1-3 cm deep. Treatments to avoid freezing would have to typically delay germination for about 5-6 months beginning in October. This research will help guide subsequent field experiments to compare frost tolerance of seeded species and seed treatments to increase seeding success and restore weed-dominated rangelands.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.