Project Number: 5360-22000-003-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Jul 21, 2005
End Date: Jul 20, 2010

Objective:
Improve our ability to prevent invasion of rangeland by medusahead, determine the most ecologically sound and cost-effective methods for managing medusahead using herbicides, and develop landscape-scale restoration strategies for medusahead-infested rangeland using successional management.

Approach:
This research will build upon existing efforts to develop ecologically-based invasive weed management strategies. This research will test ecological theories that have potential to become principles that guide invasive plant management and develop those principles into methods for managing weeds. Part of this effort will focus on understanding the key species and grazing strategies that minimize medusahead invasion. Since herbicides are one of the few effective tools for medusahead, this research will attempt to define ecological and economic thresholds for applying them. Finally, the studies will test two novel approaches to restoring medusahead infested rangeland using current ecological theory to guide the implementation. Decision-support tools will be researched and developed to assist land managers in applying existing and new knowledge associated with medusahead in the Great Basin and Columbia Plateau. Replacing 5360-22000-002-00D (5/05)