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- Title
Strategic Use of Forage Kochia (Kochia prostrata) to Revegetate Wildlife Habitat.
- Authors
Waldron, Blair L.
- Abstract
Forage kochia (Kochia prostrata [L.] Schrad.) is a long-lived, perennial, half-shrub adapted to the temperate, semiarid regions of central Asia and the western U.S. In these areas it is a valuable fall/winter forage plant for sheep, goats, camels, cattle, horses, and wildlife. Forage kochia is extremely drought, heat, and salt tolerant. Forage kochia plants are very competitive with the annual noxious weeds cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) and halogeton (Halogeton glomeratus [Stephen ex Bieb.] C.A. Mey.) and it is one of few species that can be successfully established on severely degraded, frequently burned, cheatgrass-infested rangelands. Forage kochia also is being used to establish 'greenstrips' to stop the spread of wildfires, due to its high moisture content and ability to reduce the frequency of highly flammable cheatgrass. K. prostrata and K. scoparia are both sometimes referred to as 'forage kochia' and 'summer cypress'; however, K. prostrata differs in that it has a perennial growth habit, does not spread into perennial plant stands, is not known to contain toxic levels of nitrates or oxalates, and increases biodiversity on rangelands. The cultivar 'Immigrant' was released in 1984 and remains the only released cultivar of forage kochia in the U.S., and is a short-statured, diploid type, used for livestock and wildlife forage, rangeland reclamation, and suppression of wildfires. An active breeding program is underway to develop larger statured, more productive forage kochia cultivars to enhance its utilization as winter forage and habitat in the temperate deserts of the western U.S. Overall, forage kochia is not likely to become a noxious weed, but does have the potential to improve the sustainability of rangelands and wildlife habitat in semiarid regions that frequently experience extended drought, salinity, and wildfires.
- Subjects
UNITED States; ASIA; KOCHIA prostrata; REVEGETATION; ANIMAL ecology; FORAGE plants; CHEATGRASS brome; HALOGETON
- Publication
Natural Resources & Environmental Issues, 2011, Vol 17, Issue 1-4, p143
- ISSN
1069-5370
- Publication type
Article