Throughout California rangelands have been degraded or lost to removal of woody species, invasion by noxious exotic plants, overgrazing, and development. At the UC-Hopland Research & Extension Center researchers are assessing methods to promote the restoration of rangelands by testing and disseminating spatial methods to reduce cost and improve the success of revegetation and seeding of native species.
To successfully change the ecosystem state to a more desirable composition of plants it is necessary to implement control and restoration management plans. Without restoration using desirable and competitive perennial and annual species, reinvasion of non-desirable plants ensues rapidly.
Here one sees "strips" managed on a small scale for comparison. Even though the idea of planting strips or subareas to improve rangelands has a long history, most of the past work was done before the formation of the newer concepts of spatial ecology. From such research sites various attributes are measured such as surface runoff, nutrient movement, soil-type affects, vegetation changes, and arthropod numbers.
