2019 Field Crew Field Work Summary

2019 Field Crew Field Work Summary

The veteran field crew group came together to complete several research and restoration projects on the ranch and at MPGN.

The field crew spent six weeks at MPGN this year.

We added two miles of buck and rail fence in high ungulate traffic areas.

We canvassed all the previously sprayed hillsides and killed any spurge we could find.

we collected several tons of ranch-based quarry rock and landscaped the entrance, workout stations and flowerbeds.

We added several thousand forb and grass plugs into pockets of bare soil.

We cut and planted several thousand willows and dogwoods into the North Floodplain.

All the Ungulate Forage Availability sites were visited again this spring and fall.

Early this spring, we finished hand thinning the western section of the Tongue Creek Forest.

We measured all the live shrubs in the planted bitterbrush islands.

We repaired all the plastic and metal tree protectors this spring.

We weed whacked all the knapweed off the summit of Baldy.

We helped harvest above ground biomass for the NutNet study again this year.

Prairie and Morgan added three new water catchment berms in Partridge Alley.

We transplanted basin wild rye into open niches along roadsides.

When the weather wasn’t suitable for backpack spraying, we hand pulled weeds.

we ventured up the Blackfoot River Drainage to collect hollyhock seed in the Rice Ridge Burn.

We used cut conifers to stabilize steep slopes in Tongue Creek.

On occasion, we lent a helping hand to the irrigation crew.

We spread woodchips around the base of trees to reduce vegetation competition and add nutrients.

We conducted a few small prescribed burns this year. We will burn a lot more acreage next year.