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CapitalPress.com
October 12, 2018
People & Places
Using grazing as wildfire tool
Kirk Davies
finds that
grazing can
reduce fire risk
Western
Innovator
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
Kirk Davies and his fellow
rangeland scientists in south-
eastern Oregon for years pro-
duced studies showing earlier
grazing reduces future fire
risk while benefiting native
plants.
Now they are working to
figure out how to apply these
lessons on the larger scale
that the vast sagebrush steppe
landscape often demands.
“With these findings es-
tablished, now the challenge
becomes prioritizing where
to apply this in land man-
agement,” said Davies, lead
rangeland scientist with
USDA Agricultural Research
Service in Burns, Ore.
Issues inherent in work-
ing on the usually large-scale
range include coordinating
and moving people, equip-
ment and cattle; a limited
number of cattle available;
and some public opposition to
public-lands grazing altogeth-
er, let alone as a management
tool, he said.
“We are hoping to work
with more landscape ecolo-
gists, looking at how it applies
across the landscape,” Davies
said. That would include in-
vestigating, long-term, how
rangeland plant communities
respond to fire whether they
are grazed or not, and deriv-
ing a grazing approach to suit
a location’s unique fire risk —
deciding how much to graze
and in which season, for ex-
ample.
The U.S. Bureau of Land
Management Burns District
has used targeted grazing to
help reduce fine fuels, partic-
ularly annual grasses, District
Manager Jeff Rose said. The
effort is on a fairly small scale
now, but the district is work-
ing with ARS to help scale it
to a level that will be effective
in larger landscapes, he said.
Kirk Davies
Title: Lead rangeland
scientist, USDA Agricultural
Research Service, Burns,
Ore.
Age: 40
Hometown: Princeton, Ore.
Education: Ph.D., range-
land ecology, Oregon State
University; dual B.S., range-
land resources, crop and soil
science, OSU.
Family: Wife and three
children
Kirk Davies, lead rangeland scientist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Burns, Ore.
Fires haven’t yet material-
ized on treated, grazed areas
and it’s hard to predict where
a fire will start, Rose said.
“There is a lot of anecdotal
evidence that it will work,” he
said.
Davies and colleagues
conducted research for years
before publishing a 2009 pa-
per documenting that grazing
can help native plants.
“We saw that long-term
ungrazed areas, when they
were burned, were subse-
quently invaded by exotic
annual grasses,” he said. “We
found moderately grazed ar-
eas recovered to the native
plant community. They didn’t
have that invasion and were
much better off.”
The 2009 study’s text said
in part that even plant commu-
nities that aren’t accumulating
fire fuels beyond historical
levels may need low-severi-
ty, fuel-reducing disturbances
to improve resilience to more
severe disturbances.
Researchers in turn began
looking into fire severity.
In ungrazed areas, “we
found we had larger and
hotter fires, and those fires
USDA ARS
USDA ARS
Fire in an ungrazed sagebrush community.
caused higher mortality of
desired native annual bunch
grasses,” Davies said. “We
also found ungrazed areas
were much more likely to ig-
nite with an ignition source
and more likely to spread …
with higher flame heights and
faster-moving fire.”
Even areas that went un-
grazed for just one or two
years were found to have
greater fire risk, he said.
Moreover, grazing in the fall
or spring ahead of peak sum-
mer fire season greatly re-
duced the risk of severe fire.
Findings from the re-
searchers’ 2010 study in-
cluded that moderate graz-
ing reduces wildfire risk by
decreasing fine fuels avail-
able for ignition, and limit-
ing spread by reducing fuel
continuity, the text said in
part. While moderate grazing
makes prescribed burning
more difficult, it can help pro-
duce a mosaic burn effect that
can reduce a fire’s speed and
overall size.
Their other studies found
that dormant-season grazing
increased moisture levels to
an extent that an area was at
risk of fire some two months
later into the summer season;
and that winter grazing can
reduce wildfire size, intensi-
ty and spread in shrub areas;
prefire grazing increases post-
fire resistance to exotic annual
grass invasion and dominance
for decades; and fall and
spring grazing decreased ig-
nition probability and a fire’s
ability to spread by increasing
fine-fuel moisture while de-
creasing fuel mass and height.
“Essentially we are look-
ing at the effects of grazing on
fire risk, behavior and sever-
ity, and even post-fire recov-
ery,” Davies said.
He researches range-
land comprehensively, from
plants, soils, grazing and fire
to weeds, encroaching vege-
tation — like Western Juniper
— and various environmental
conditions.
Eastern Oregon hunt raffle to benefit OSU ag scholarship
By KATY NESBITT
For the Capital Press
WALLOWA, Ore. — A
conservation easement in
the heart of Wallowa County
farmland is being managed
to grow large white tail buck
deer for big game hunting —
and philanthropy.
Landowner Woody Wolfe
said he’s managed the river
bottom to grow big white tail
bucks for several years and
with a handful of Land Owner
Preference elk, buck and doe
tags issued through Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife,
he has a few tags to share.
“In 2016 the largest white
tail buck in the state was taken
off my property by a neighbor,”
Wolfe said.
At the time, Wolfe said, the
buck ranked fifth in the Ore-
gon black powder record book.
Chad Garrett has guided
hunts on the Wolfe Ranch for
several years and is well famil-
iar with the Wallowa mid-val-
ley land with views of the sur-
rounding mountains.
“Woody has a lot of trophy
game on his place,” he said.
EO Media Group File
Woody Wolfe is using a hunting raffle of Land Owner Preference
tags to fund a scholarship for an Oregon State University agricul-
ture major from Wallowa County, Ore.
As he’s become known
around the county, Garrett said
he’s been asked to help local
clubs and nonprofits raise mon-
ey through hunt raffles, allow-
able under Oregon state gam-
ing laws.
When Wolfe was ap-
proached by Wallowa County
Center for Wellness for a dona-
tion he looked for advice from
staff at The Nature Conservan-
cy’s Zumwalt Prairie Preserve,
which offers raffle hunt op-
portunities to local nonprofits.
Then he turned to Garrett for
help.
With a website and a PayPal
account 100 tickets were sold at
$100 apiece in six days. Garrett
was paid for his effort, Wolfe
said, and $8,500 went to the
Center.
According to Garrett, the
winner of that raffle was a man
looking to kill his first white
tail buck to qualify for the Su-
per Slam of North American
Big Game — the legal taking
of all 29 of the traditional-
ly recognized species of big
game animals native to North
America.
Wolfe said the experience
got him thinking. With such a
rapid response to the first raf-
fle, what other worthy causes
could he support by raffling
some of his Land Owner Pref-
erence tags?
“If I could raise that money
with one tag or two, I thought
about what cause do I feel
is the most valuable to me?”
Wolfe said.
The answer was a schol-
arship for a Wallowa County
high school graduate pursu-
ing a degree in agriculture at
Oregon State University. As
a sixth-generation Wallowa
County farmer, Wolfe says ag-
riculture is close to his heart.
“I think an education can
facilitate people who want to
go into agriculture, whether
in ag service or production,”
Wolfe said. “Ag is what has
paid me back for the efforts I
put forth — if it is a passion for
someone else, I want to help
create a return for that pas-
sion.”
Again Wolfe turned to Gar-
rett for help. He set up a website
and a PayPal account to facil-
itate raffle hunts and serves as
the guide. After Garrett’s time,
Wolfe said each scholarship
award will be around $7,500.
This year two raffles are
offered to raise money for the
scholarship. Garrett said 100
tickets are available for $100
apiece for each hunt. The win-
ner of each of the two raffles
will receive a three-day guided
hunt and lodging.
Garrett said the first schol-
arship will be awarded in
2019, but the money will not
be available until the winner’s
junior year, when he or she
declares a major. The winner
must also have maintained a
3.0 grade-point average those
first two years of college to
claim the scholarship.
Tickets are available at
www.biggamerafflehunts.
com through Jan. 1. The raf-
fle drawing will be held Jan.
10. For more information, call
Garrett at 503-367-0207.
for a free workshop about managing
mud, manure and pastures along
with winter health care for horses.
Website: https://www.swcd.net/event/
preparing-winter-horse-properties/
nor Field House, 2207 Blaine St.,
Caldwell, Idaho. Families and indi-
viduals who show proof of agricultural
employment, such as a pay stub, will
get in free. The event will feature food,
entertainment and booths with infor-
mation about various programs that
may benefit farmworkers and their
families.
Calendar
To submit an event go to the
Community Events calendar on the
home page of our website at www.
capitalpress.com and click on “Sub-
mit an Event.” Calendar items can
also be mailed to Capital Press, 1400
Broadway St. NE, Salem, OR 97301
or emailed to newsroom@capital-
press.com. Include “Calendar” in the
subject line.
Friday-Sunday
Oct. 12-14
Hood River Valley Harvest Fest.
1-6 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sat-
urday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Hood
River Event Site, North of Exit 63 off
Interstate 84, Hood River, Ore. Cel-
ebrate Hood River’s harvest season.
This old-fashioned fall festival brings
together more than 120 vendors offer-
ing local produce and food products,
plus arts and crafts, wine, cider and
beer tastings. Held along the scenic
Hood River waterfront, this is the
Columbia River Gorge’s biggest cel-
ebration of the region’s incredible fall
bounty. Website: http://hoodriver.org/
harvest-fest/
Monday, Oct. 15
Beekeeping Workshop. 6-8 p.m.
Columbia County OSU Extension,
505 N. Columbia River Highway, St.
Helens, Ore. Topics include how to
build a bee house and how to fight
varroa mites.
Thursday, Oct. 18
Balancing Profitability and Access
in Local Food Systems. 8:30 a.m.-
4 p.m. The Riverside Hotel, 2900
W. Chinden Blvd., Boise, Idaho. In
a state that comprises big ag, small
ag and highly motivated food sys-
tem stakeholders, how can we bring
more locally produced foods into
mainstream markets and strengthen
the economics of small- to mid-sized
farms? This one-day conference will
explore, through an economic lens,
ways to cultivate a local food econ-
omy to create jobs, invigorate small
farms and businesses and keep pre-
cious dollars in our Idaho communi-
ties. Hosted by the University of Idaho
Extension, the conference is made
possible with a Western Sustainable
Agriculture Research & Education
(WSARE) grant. Cost: $45 Website:
https://idahofood2018.eventbrite.com
Saturday, Oct. 20
Preparing for Winter on Horse
Properties Workshop. 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation
District, 7175 NE Evergreen Parkway
No. 400, Hillsboro, Ore. Join the Tu-
alatin Soil and Water Conservation
District and Horses for Clean Water
Saturday-Sunday
Oct. 20-21
All About Fruit Show. Saturday, 10
a.m.-4 p.m. Clackamas County Fair-
grounds, 694 NE Fourth Ave., Canby,
Ore. The show offers hundreds of
varieties of heirloom fruit to see and
taste. Types of fruit include apples,
pears, quince, grapes, kiwis and
more. Custom-grafted fruit trees are
also available. Bring unknown apples
for sleuthing by the Apple ID team.
Website: http://www.homeorchardso-
ciety.org/contact-us/
Sunday, Oct. 21
AgroFiesta. Noon-4p.m. O’Con-
Tuesday-Wednesday
Oct. 23-24
Nutrient Management Confer-
ence. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Embassy Suites,
1441 Canyon Del Rey, Seaside, Calif.
The agenda will focus on the latest
FREP-funded research results and
practical applications of fertilizing
materials for agricultural production in
the state of California. Grower, CCA,
and PCA credits will be requested.
Website: https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Is/
ffldrs/frep/FREPConference.html
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Index
Dairy .................................... 10
Markets ............................... 12
Opinion .................................. 6
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