Worn out, degraded pasture….. pinyon-juniper encroachment….. eroded or degraded riparian areas….. invasive weed infestation. These are problems throughout the West, and especially common on the Front Range of Colorado.
Our arid climate makes maintaining quality rangeland a challenge. Many of our native grasses did not evolve to take continuous grazing pressure, and have faded away under that pressure in the last century and a half. Drought has exacerbated the problem.
Damaged rangeland can quickly be overrun by lower quality forage, invasive weeds, or can become barren, causing the loss of our small and fragile topsoil layer, and the aggressive outgassing of soil carbon. Hard-hit rangeland is often found to contain little but a few small tufts of pummeled Buffalograss, and lots of Kochia and Russian Thistle. Damaged wetlands are often quickly overrun with water-sucking Siberian Elms, Russian Olive, Tamarisk, and non-native weeds.
Water is always an issue in Colorado as well, either we don't get enough, or we get too much at once, causing flooding and erosion. Hard-packed, damaged rangelands can struggle to soak up water, losing most of it to runoff, and strategies are often needed to improve water infiltration and retention.
Peak Pro Outdoor Services can help you increase the plant diversity of your rangeland, better manage nutrients and water resources, and help you devise a grazing pattern that mimics the grazing pattern to which most of our native plants have evolved. We can partner with you to re-establish native forage, repair damaged rangeland, and restore a good nutrient balance to your soil.
Whether you have a two acre horse pasture, or a two thousand acre cattle operation, we believe there are always ways to improve.
We manage areas experiencing pinyon juniper encroachment to restore a more historically natural grassland-savanna environment, reducing your danger of fire, increasing your usable pasture, restoring a better hydrologic balance to your land.
The first step is a consultation. Contact us to learn more!
