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Excerpt from Responses of Herbage and Browse Production to Six Range Management Strategies
Productivity classes were significantly different (p in the sagebrush, mountain grassland, and mountain meadow ecosystems, but not in the juniper or alpine eco systems (table Production did not consistently increase in magnitude, however, from the low to high productivity classes. We do not have a reasonable explanation for this capricious response. Herbage and browse production was generally lower than expected, based on the assigned productivity classes. Condition class did not have a significant effect on production on any of the range ecosystems except juni per. In the juniper ecosystem, the sites in good condition produced significantly more herbage and browse than the fair and poor sites, and the fair and poor sites were not significantly different (p We expected the sites in better condition to be more productive, but that was not the case. It is our judgment that the condition criteria are inadequate or are not consistently applied. Condition was based on an ecological climax criteria and does not adequately reflect management objectives, primarily be cause seeded species are mostly introduced grasses. Consequently, seeded areas were classed as poor condition regardless of the production of the established veg etation. Changing this concept to reflect management objectives instead of ecologi cal status would remove this bias. Cultural practices, such as removal of juniper or shrubs, seeding, and fertilization, increased grass production on all sites except the mountain meadow, low productivity level poor condition resource unit. Significant increases occurred in 8 out of 17 cases (table For treatments other than fertiliza tion, which was measured the first and second years after treatment, there was a lag in response. As in the forest ecosystems, we measured vegetative herbage response 2 years after treatment for all other treatments. This is still early for seedings and vegetation released by shrub removal to show full potential production.
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