rangelands

The 6^th Research Insights in Semiarid Environments (RISE) Symposium is coming up soon - Saturday, 3 October 2009, 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM.  We have a great program with a repeat visit from Petey Mesquitey.  The poster submission deadline is 18 September, so please submit your latest research results soon.  The poster session is always well attended.  Please, submit your registration promptly so we can plan the event effectively.  The web site is  http://www.tucson.ars.ag.gov/rise/ .

“ The whole meeting just turned into really a shouting match of indictments and accusations that never went anywhere, except that these people that sat on this side of the room left mad. ”

Tierra Seca, an undergraduate club in the Rangeland Ecology and Management program in SNRE, gives its 15 members the opportunity to excel professionally and to grow as practitioners. They have monitored rangeland health at the Empire Cienega Ranch, built dams to control erosion on the Santa Rita Experimental Range (SRER) and supported the effort to remove the noxious weed buffelgrass.  SNRE professor and Research Director at the SRER, Mitch McClaran advises Tierra Seca and has worked alongside students to restore native the native landscape to the SRER.

Death is an integral part of the cycle of life.  In ecosystems, plants acquire inorganic compounds from their environment (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.) and build them into complex organic compounds that nourish animals either directly (e,g,, herbivores than consume plants) or indirectly (carnivores that consume herbivores). Eventually, all plants and animals in the ecosystem die.  What is the fate of the nutrients they have accumulated during their life-time?

Efforts to control the invasive species buffelgrass are expanding across the city of Tucson. The School of Natural Resources and the Environment is involved at several sites including Tumamoc Hill and the Santa Rita Experimental Range. SNRE research specialist, Travis Bean is orchestrating the removal of buffelgrass from Tumamoc Hill on the west side of Tucson.

Prior to starting my current position with the U of A at the V Bar V, I worked for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station 20 years, the last 9 years of that in College Station as Director of the Grazingland Animal Nutrition Lab, better known as the "Gan Lab". In this capacity I was tasked with developing and providing tools to monitor the nutritional and physiological status of grazing livestock and wildlife. The primary focus of the Gan Lab is the use of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) of manure to determine diet quality. This information is

As a professor and extension specialist in Rangeland Management, my primary role is to provide leadership for statewide educational programming backed by problem-solving research and focused on sustainable use of rangelands. My interests have a central theme to provide various client-groups the ecological foundation essential for the implementation of effective rangeland management. Through participatory research and education, my programming helps build capacity in collaborative conservation, usually in