USDA - Agricultural Research Service

Jornada Experimental Range

We are a group of scientists and technical staff working with a mission to develop new knowledge of ecosystem processes as a basis for management and remediation of desert rangelands. Our science program traces back to field research initiated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1912 when the 78,000 ha Jornada Experimental Range was first established by Presidential Executive Order. As a unit of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service we work on four general research objectives that contribute to a national rangeland research program:

1. Methods for assessment and monitoring of rangelands at landscape, watershed, and regional scales,
2. Ecologically-based technologies for remediation of degraded rangelands,
3. Animal behavior-based strategies for livestock management, and
4. Predictive models of ecosystem responses to changes in climate and other management-dependent and - independent drivers.

As a site within the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research network, these activities are built on strong collaborations with other institutions and agencies interested in deserts, desert agriculture, desert ecology, and the management of desert rangelands. Our program is embedded within a larger research context in the Jornada Basin, the surrounding region, and in other deserts around the nation and the world where USDA, New Mexico State University, and our collaborating scientists work on objectives central to this mission or related topics.