Coffey Ranch: Herbaceous plant composition transects data
| In This Report: Introduction The Herbaceous Plant Community Total Animal Unit Days of Grazing Stocking Rates Managing the Woody Plant Community Wildlife Production map |
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by Hugh Aljoe, Russell Stevens, Charles Griffith
We randomly established five transects 200 yards long in the herbaceous plant community to monitor plant composition. These transects were monitored every year during the past 10 years. Plants were identified by specie and then categorized into three seral groups — low, middle, or high — based on growth characteristics and annual production. Figure 1 shows how the population of plants in each group has responded to ecological management tools (rest, grazing, fire, and animal impact) after changing to a rotational grazing method that utilizes a grazing cell with multiple paddocks.
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Figure 2. |
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Figure 3. |
The mid-seral group rapidly increased and outnumbered the low-seral group by the end of the third year. It was after the fourth year that the high-seral group began an upward trend. Twenty-six different species were recorded the first year of monitoring. Currently, more than 90 species are being recorded, verifying a dramatic increase in plant diversity since 1988. Every year we took photographs on the same date at the same location in each transect. Ragweed was the dominant plant of the low-seral species component in 1987 (Figure 2). Figure 3 shows the same area in 1996 dominated by mid-seral species.
Coffey Ranch Main Page
The Herbaceous Plant Community
Total Animal Unit Days of Grazing
Stocking Rates
Managing the Woody Plant Community
Wildlife Production
Source: 1997 Noble Foundation Annual Report