Increase perennial grass: Average of 20% native perennial grass cover on the west side by 2020.
Maintain covered soil surface: All pastures average <5% bare ground across the ranch by 2020.
Vegetation cover varies across the ranch, likely reflecting the interaction between local soil conditions, management decisions, and weather. Native grasses are more common on the west side of the ranch, where in 2019 most pastures exceeded the goal of 20% native grass cover. In addition, most pastures across the entire ranch met the goal of <5% bare ground.
Choose a vegetation type at bottom left. Click on any of the pastures for details.
Vegetation cover changes over time, and the amount of change has varied by pasture. Again, these changes likely reflect the influences of both weather (drought) and management decisions, and depend on local soil conditions. Comparing 2017-2019 to 2012-2014, perennial and native grass cover has more than doubled in several pastures.
Choose a vegetation type at bottom left. Click on any of the pastures for details.
Since 2012, grass cover dropped slightly during the drought and rebounded in 2018. Bare ground has been declining since 2014, and in 2019, invasive weeds were at their lowest levels yet.
Perennial grasses and native grasses are generally trending upward.
The number of plant species in each pasture varies across the ranch. We summarized the average number of species detected in 2017-2019, excluding shrubs and trees.
Perennial grasses: Grasses that can survive for many years, whereas annual grasses germinate from seed, reproduce, and die each year. Perennial grasses generally turn green sooner, stay green longer, produce more biomass, and are more drought-tolerant than annual grasses. Their deep roots stabilize soil, improve water infiltration, and recycle nutrients.
Native grasses: California native grasses are perennials, which have been largely displaced by exotic annual grasses.
Forbs: Herbaceous flowering plants that are not grasses, sedges or rushes.
This interactive web page was produced in R using rmarkdown and the packages leaflet and plotly. The code used to produce this web page is available on Github.
Please contact:
Chelsea Carey, PhD
Senior Soil Ecologist
Working Lands Group
Point Blue Conservation Science