Proactive Management Helps Colorado Rancher Weather Drought 

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The NRCS Plant Materials Program eNewsletter for the conservation community

Colorado rancher Lawlor Wakem watched last year as 

his ranch, 70 miles southwest of Denver, only received three 

inches of rain from September to September. 

Yet, somehow he was able to keep his grazing lands in 

good health. 

“The key is to react very early to drought,” says 

Wakem, also a supervisor for the local Soil and Water 

Conservation District. “I could tell by March, we didn’t have 

the snow pack and we reacted very quickly.” 

Wakem reduced his heard of 350 cow-calf pairs by a 

third and trucked his heifers to Texas. He decided to 

completely rest almost a quarter of his rangeland and then 

continued his rotational grazing system on the remaining 

uplands and sub-irrigated bottoms, moving cows every 

seven to ten days through a series of paddocks. 

“Lawlor implemented a drought plan in a timely 

fashion,” says Ben Berlinger, rangeland management 

specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service 

(NRCS) in southeastern Colorado. “But his grass was 

already healthy going into the drought because of his 

prescribed grazing management and his experimentation 

with different seedings.” 

Over the last several years, Wakem has run trials of 

different grass varieties on his property in coordination with 

the NRCS Plant Materials Program and Colorado State 

University’s Mountain Meadow Research Station. 

“I try new seedings every year,” Wakem says. “I try to 

find varieties that establish themselves quickly and provide 

some tonnage.” 

Through his research, Wakem found inter-seeding his 

bottomlands with a mix of mountain brome, western 

wheatgrass and bottlebrush squirreltail increased forage 

production, provided grazing earlier in the spring and 

offered an alternative for winter grazing. He used Garnet 

Germplasm mountain brome and Tusas Germplasm 

bottlebrush squirreltail, both Plant Materials Program 

releases. 

During the drought, the inter-seeded pastures provided 

Wakem with additional grazing options, extending his green 

grass growing period and helping to take some of the 

pressure off his 

native rangeland. 

“It’s really 

important to plan 

ahead,” Wakem 

says. “Our 

pastures look as 

good this year as 

other years 

before the 

drought.” 

For more info: NRCS drought information at 

http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/feature/highlights/drought.html

Contact: Ben Berlinger, ben.berlinger@co.usda.gov

Lawlor Wakem stands in a new seeding on his ranch. He 

used 'Garrison' creeping foxtail, a Plant Materials 

Program release, on one of his irrigated hay meadows. 

A trial planting with mountain brome. 
The mission of the Natural Resources Conservation Service Plant Materials Program is to develop, test and transfer 

effective state-of-the-art plant science technology to meet customer and resource needs.

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 Visit us: http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov Subscribe to eNews: http://news-source.nrcs.usda.gov

A burned area revegetated with ‘Pryor’ slender 

wheatgrass, selected by the NRCS Plant 

Materials Program. 

Ask the Expert

Bruce Munda, NRCS Plant Materials Specialist, Tucson, Arizona 

What is the greatest challenge to rehabilitating areas burned by wildfire? 

Once the threat of the fire passes, the challenge becomes finding 

solutions to stabilize steep slopes before mudslides can wash out roads and 

buildings, and diminish water quality. The NRCS Plant Materials Program 

has assisted with revegetating dozens of burned sites throughout the West. 

We’ve generally found we need to seed a fast-establishing native grass or 

annual grain to stop soil movement and begin building organic material. 

I’ve been working on the Aspen Fire here in Arizona. The fire lasted a 

month earlier this summer and burned over 86,000 acres. We needed to 

stabilize scorched slopes immediately since Mt. Lemmon’s watershed 

drains into the Tucson basin. To accomplish this, we included an annual 

grain in our seeding mix. The grain made up 40 percent of the mix and the 

rest included grasses indigenous to the area, such as Arizona fescue, 

mountain brome, junegrass and bottlebrush squirreltail. We based this 

percentage on successful plantings after the Arizona Rodeo Fire. Annual 

grains germinate and grow quickly while native perennials take three to 

five times longer. Over the next couple years, the annual grain will disappear and the native grasses and forbs will take over. 

We’ve found similar results in Idaho and Montana with the planting of native slender wheatgrass. The wheatgrass 

establishes rapidly, providing a thick carpet of green among black tree trunks and initiating the nutrient cycling process, inspiring 

growth of the entire native plant community. 

For more info: http://plant-materials.nrcs.usda.gov/pubslist/wildfire.html

Contact: Bruce Munda, bruce.munda@az.usda.gov

Did You Know... 

Did you know a new farmer-run cooperative is growing the native plant, Indian ricegrass, 

for gluten-free flour? More than 50 growers now belong to Amazing Grains, a Montana-based 

cooperative that harvested over a quarter-million pounds of Indian ricegrass seed for use in 

breads, muffins and pie crusts last year. 

“Indian ricegrass offers hands-down the best gluten-free flour on the market,” says Alice 

Pilgeram, associate research professor at Montana State University, and one of four researchers 

who initiated the cooperative. “This is important information for people with celiac disease who 

cannot digest the gluten protein found in traditional bread products.” 

The Amazing Grains cooperative is marketing the gluten-free flour through the brand-name 

‘Montina’ and on the website, www.montina.com. 

 Indian ricegrass grows native from New Mexico to Canada. The grass is droughttolerant, provides quality forage for livestock and wildlife, and often greens back up in the fall. 

The NRCS Plant Materials Program’s release of ‘Rimrock’ Indian ricegrass is one of several 

varieties being grown for gluten-free flour. 

For more info: Alice Pilgeram, Pilgeram@montana.edu Link: http://www.montina.com

Quotable Quotes 

“Every flower has to go through a lot of dirt.” --anonymous 

‘Rimrock’ Indian ricegrass, 

useful for conservation and 

grown for gluten-free flour.