A low profile part of our prairie grazing program, having little to do with the romance of building fence, moving the herd on horseback, seeing Curly Bill, the legend, or taking pictures of golden buffalo calves is obtaining a scientific baseline of the vegetation on the ranch to see what exactly is going on with the interactions of the flora, the weather and gazing.
Pat Murphy, an excellent and dedicated botanist and friend of the ranch, who volunteers his time and expertise, has, over the last four years, established nearly two dozen study sites, called transepts, to monitor the plant cultures within the grassland communities. The transects, from which the data are collected annually, consist of a plot of ground fifty meters long by two meters wide. The data include identifying each of the species that the plot contains and calculating the percentage of each of the species within each transect, which is then compared statistically to each of the other transects as well as to itself over the course of time.
The data is gathered in two stages and is relatively simple, if at times a little tedious. In the first stage a reading is taken with a specialized instrument at each meter on either side of the central axis. Stage two requires a close visual inspection and identification of everything that the one-meter increment locations missed. In each transect of fifty meters there are one hundred fixed identification points-at one meter on either side of the central line at each meter along the line. Each transect requires about one and one half hours to gather the data; so we’re looking at several days work for two people to cover all of the sites.
We pack in on horseback to many of the sites; so this is pretty much an all day deal for several days. For the past few years Pat and I or Dan saddle horses and GPS our way to each of the transects to collect the data. Usually we also establish a few new sites selected by careful consideration of aerial photographs and then by on-site inspection. Site selection attempts to incorporate all of the diversity of grazing areas: riparian zones, high plateau meadows, badlands breaks, and watershed drainage and seeks to include all available species and plant cultures.
We are attempting to learn something scientific about what grazing does to and for grasslands. Obviously, weather plays a part because some species do well in wet years and others do well in dry years. The distribution of seeds by wind, water, and animals is important, as are the survival strategies of plants. For example buffalo frequently love to destroy yucca plants, but young yucca sprout from the root systems of the destroyed older plant. So the prairie is always changing, and we feel that it is our obligation to that prairie no longer to rely simply on anecdotal evaluations of the grazing quality and potential of the grasslands; it is our obligation to do our best to have and to understand scientific data regarding the flow and flux of what transpires on the grassland environment, particularly in relation to the grazing of these lands.
We produce meat from grazing these grasslands; so by extension, our obligation extends to you, our customers and friends.