Project Number: 5409-22610-001-10
Project Type: Trust

Start Date: Jul 01, 2007
End Date: Jun 30, 2012

Objective:
1. Create plant community baseline data set for monitoring at the allotment (AMP) level. 2. Compare ground cover and other measurements made from VLSA to data from AEROCam and to on-the-ground field data.

Approach:
We will evaluate the allotments using aerial surveys and eighty-two 75m x 75m plots at each of 2 national grassland sites having mixed-grass communities. Ground measurements will be made June ¿ August of cover, forb density and presence/absence of graminoids from a 0.25m2 plot frame. For each plot there will also be a plant height to weight ratio developed from a Robel pole reading and a 0.25m2 frame of clipped vegetation (by life form). The center of the quadrat will be located with a GPS unit. Between the third week of June and the second week of July, we will acquire VLSA and AEROCam imagery. Cover measurements will be made from the imagery using SamplePoint software and the results compared with the on-the-ground data to determine correlations between bare ground, plant species composition, plant height, production (both herbage and total standing crop).