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[RC] Cattle and flowers - Sheila_LarsenBarbara wrote: "An interesting study by a former university student in our county showed that grazed land is plentiful in wildflowers. This student was rabidly anti-grazing when he started at the university. Over the years he did lots of studies and discovered that on the university property, once a cattle ranch, now just left alone, wildflowers were disappearing. He was one of the students who had pushed for eliminating grazing on the university fields. Our pasture, continuously grazed for probably 200 years, has abundant wildflowers. On a neighboring pasture, not so consistently grazed and managed, often left to its natural devices, wildflowers were overtaken by brush. I know that grazing, if done prudently, is beneficial to grasses and wildflowers. No rancher, who uses and loves his own land is deliberately going to destroy it. That makes no sense at all, since it is his livelihood that is at stake, and a destroyed land will not support his cattle, year after year. I'm a great believer in the philosophy that a knowledgeable rancher is the best steward of his land." You are so correct, many people always want to pull cattle off public lands because they think they are bad. When you pull the cows off is not very good for native flowers because they can't compete against the non-native grasses. It is my understanding that people wanted the cattle pulled off of Olmsted/Knickerbocker so they were and now it is primarily star thistle, makes good honey, but not much else except I understand that at the early stages it makes a good high protein forage for some animals.. The problem is that I see many places where the grassland is just converted to a feed lot and I just don't understand it. These are very large tracts of land too. Sad. The bay area "corduroy hills" are primarily caused by cattle not sheep as sheep are not the primary grazers in those areas they are grazed more on the San Joaquin valley side. I wonder if they do stop erosion because if it wasn't grazed the grass I would think would prevent erosion, but then we do get into the issues above by the lack of grazing. The slippage stuff just happens. I also wonder if the corduroy hills are also a product of the heavy clay soil type? To make this endurance related: getting that heavy clay out of your horses feet is very difficult and don't let it dry in your horses feet. A lovely horse is always an experience.... It is an emotional experience of the kind that is spoiled by words. ~Beryl Markham =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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