Owyhee Site

Location: Elko County, NV, near the McCleary Wells, southern Owyhee Desert
Land Management Agency: Bureau of Land Management Elko Field Office
SageSTEP Site Manager: Jeff Burnham
Plots: Four 200-acre core plots (Control, Burn, Mechanical, Herbicide)
Elevation: 5300-5400 ft.
Topography: 0-10% slopes of all aspects
Common Vegetation: Wyoming big sagebrush, viscid rabbitbrush, Sandberg bluegrass, squirreltail, Indian ricegrass, bluebunch wheatgrass, basin wildrye, and cheatgrass.
Soils: fine-silty to fine-loamy, mixed, mesic
Fire Regime: Historically, several decades. Many of these communities experienced an increased fire return interval with settlement and overgrazing. Cheatgrass invasion can cause larger fires and reduce this interval to 10 years or less.
Representative Land Base: Several million acres in western and central Utah, southern Idaho, northern Nevada, and eastern Oregon.
Grazing: Plots are located on an active grazing allotment, and will be fenced for the duration of the study to exclude livestock.
Treatment Schedule: Fall 2008. For more information about treatment implementation, click here.

Click here to download the Owyhee Site Fact Sheet (PDF, 838KB).