Forage Adaptability Trials for Forage and Seed Production in Bolivia; Effect of 5 Herbicides on 7 Native Utah Forbs

• Main Author: Voss, Joshua C.
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2006
• Subjects: Bolivia; Altiplano; agriculture; forage; introduced; grass; seed production; native; forb; seed; revegetation; fire; Utah; herbicide; Animal Sciences
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1121; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2120&context=etd

The harsh environmental and poor economic conditions of the Bolivian Altiplano require intervention to assist many of those that live there to become economically self-sufficient. We attempted to find introduced dry season reserve forage grasses that could produce enough biomass to be useful as feed for livestock, and that could also produce enough seed to distribute to farmers. While some of the grasses produced reasonable amounts of biomass, none produced seed in quantities that would be even close to being economically viable. The most likely cause of this is that the timing of resources that the grasses need to flower is very different between Bolivia and the areas from which the grasses originally came. We concluded that either the conditions under which the grasses are grown would need to be changed (i.e., earlier irrigation), or pre-adapted native species should be used. Native forbs are a critical component of any natural ecosystem, and thus should be included in wildland restoration projects. However, because the seed is currently collected by hand from the wild, it is very expensive, and this limits the ability of land managers to utilize it. A possible solution to this dilemma is for growers to commercially produce the seed and thus drive down the cost. In such a situation, it would be necessary to use herbicides to control competing weeds. We analyzed the effects of 5 herbicides on 7 species of native Utah forbs at 3 growth stages to learn which herbicides could safely be used on the test plants. We found that the plants' reaction the herbicides is largely species- and growth-stage specific.