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Cattle grazing on a nearly half mile wide targeted strip of cheatgrass near Beowawe, Nevada, created a firebreak that helped limit a rangeland fire to just 54 acres this past August compared to rangeland fires that more commonly race across thousands of acres of the Great Basin. This "targeted grazing" firebreak and eight others are part of an evaluation project being managed by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), partnering with other federal, state and local agencies and local cattle ranchers in Idaho, Nevada and Oregon. These demonstration sites are being studied so the concept's efficacy and environmental impacts can be uniformly evaluated and compared.
Cheatgrass, also known as downy brome, is an invasive annual that dominates more than 100 million acres of the Great Basin in the western U.S. Germinating each winter, cheatgrass grows furiously in spring and dies in early summer, leaving the range carpeted in golden dry tinder. The Great Basin now has the nation's highest wildfire risk, and rangeland fires are outpacing forest fires when it comes to acreage destroyed.
Chapter 20 (pages 232-244) in: Invasive Plant Management Issues and Challenges in the United States: 2011 Overview; Westbrooks, R., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2011.
Oxford University Press. Journal of Insect Science.
"This study demonstrates the feasibility of using an inexpensive method to track wasps, potentially allowing for a rapid and simplified method of locating invasive wasp nests." Supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service appropriated project “Development of New and Improved Surveillance, Detection, Control, and Management Technologies for Fruit Flies and Invasive Pests of Tropical and Subtropical Crops” (2040-22430-027-000-D) and by the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services.
Is artificial intelligence (AI) a viable tool in the fight against invasive species? UF/IFAS scientists are exploring that question on a small scale in a project using traps equipped with AI technology. For this study, the traps are targeting Argentine black and white tegus in Fort Pierce. Scientists hope these AI 'smart traps' will help suppress and remove an established population of these lizards that have quickly invaded this Treasure Coast city. St. Lucie county has become a hot spot for tegus over the last seven years.