The San Joaquin Experimental Range

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA THE SAN JOAQUIN EXPERIMENTAL RANGE C. B. HUTCHISON and E. I. KOTOK CATTLE RANGE IN THE GRANITE AREA BULLETIN 663 April, 1942 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA CONTENTS PAGE Introduction 3 The Experimental Area, by M. W. Talbot, J. W. Nelson, and R. E. Storie 7 The Forage Crop and Its Management, by M. W. Talbot and H. H. Biswell .... 13 Experimental Herd Management, by K. A. Wagnon, H. R. Guilbert, and G. H. Hart 50 Ranch Organization and Management in the Granite Area, by E. C. Voorhies, L. A. Crawford, R. L. Adams, and G. A. Carpenter 83 Interrelations of Rodents and Other Wildlife of the Range, by E. E. Horn and H. S. Fitch 96 4 Studies on Valley Quail, by T. I. Storer, F. P. Cronemiller, E. E. Horn, and Ben Glading 130 Other Studies and Experiments in the Program of the San Joaquin Experimental Range, by M. W. Talbot, H. H. Biswell, P. B. Rowe, and A. W. Sampson . 136 Contributors and General Acknowledgments 143 Literature Cited 145 THE SAN JOAQUIN EXPERIMENTAL RANGE1 C. B. HUTCHISON 2 and E. I. KOTOK3 INTRODUCTION The total land area of California comprises close to 100,000,000 acres. After excluding crop lands, dense forests, brush lands, desert, inac- cessible areas and parts from which grazing is excluded, there still re- main upwards of 60,000,000 acres of grazing lands. The actual grazing value of individual acres is low but there are many of them. Collectively they are the supporting base for California's second largest agricultural industry—livestock production. This production of meat, milk, and wool is the only method of harvesting the forage wealth produced by these acres from year to year. Grass, using the term in a collective sense, is the most valuable single crop produced in the state. Under the multiple-use concept these uncultivated lands of California have value for watershed development, timber production, livestock grazing, and recreation and wildlife. In different areas one of these uses will become paramount and the others fall in different places of relative importance. The beef cattle population of California numbers over 1,000,000 head and there are about 3,000,000 sheep. In addition, about 750,000 feeder and slaughter cattle and over 1,000,000 sheep are shipped into the state annually to meet consumption requirements. Beef production is important in all areas and of major importance to the agriculture of at least two thirds of the counties. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada are of great importance for grazing and five of the ten leading counties in number of beef cattle are in this area, namely Tulare, Kern, Merced, Fresno, and Madera. There are great variations in forage production from one part of the state to another, as influenced by soil types, rainfall, and elevation. Important as these factors are, however, climatic variability for any one given area markedly affects the quality, time of growth, and quantity of vegetative cover from season to season. The San Joaquin Experimental 1 Received for publication June 3, 1941. 2 Dean of the College of Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station. 8 Director of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station, maintained by the Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, in Berkeley, California, in cooperation with the University of California ; transferred, January 10, 1941. [3] 4 University of California—Experiment Station Range (for brevity hereinafter referred to as "the Range"), located in the granitic area near the center of the state, exemplifies range lands of rather medium value and reflects many of the unsolved problems deal- ing with seasonal variabilities and nutritive deficiencies. In the Sierra Nevada foothills the vegetation is largely composed of annual forage plants. These sprout from seed in the fall following the first rains, make a varied rate of growth according to the weather condi- tions, and reach maturity in March or April, with shattering of their seed. They dry up in May or June and become bleached by the sun and leached by occasional summer rains. This dry material constitutes the only ground cover and gives the brown appearance of the range until the fall rains again germinate the seed and the green mantle appears. Throughout the year these lands are grazed by varying numbers of livestock and support many species of wildlife. The nutritional value of the plant cover to animal life depends on the stage of growth and this in turn on the season of the year. In the early vegetative stages the dry matter of the green plants is uniformly high in minerals and protein with the total weight composed largely of water. The vegetation as grazed, therefore, is in the nature of a watered concentrate feed. It gradually changes from this condition as the plants mature, dry, and their seeds shatter ; late in the dry season it becomes a very poor roughage—low in protein, phosphorus, and vitamin A, high in fiber, and with low palata- bility. On account of the quantity and quality of this feed, part of the livestock are moved to higher mountain ranges in the national forests to the east under Forest Service grazing permits during the summer, and to valley salt grass, stubble, or irrigated pasture lands in the late summer and fall. The problem which these lands present is how best to utilize their feed resources and still maintain the vegetative cover of desirable plant species as well as to improve its quality or quantity. From the livestock standpoint, therefore, it has been necessary to study the grazing management of animals in order to utilize best the feed on the ground by the addition of supplements to meet its nutritional deficiencies at certain seasons of the year. With the establishment of the San Joaquin Experimental Range by the U. S. Forest Service in 1934, the University of California entered into cooperation with the Forest Service on several projects. The University Agricultural Experiment Station placed the experimental herd of cattle on the Range, under the supervision of the Division of Animal Husbandry, to study how best to maintain on a year-round basis herds of commercial cattle on these lands. Bul. 663] The San Joaquin Experimental Range 5 Studies on forage management, on the effect of the domestic animal life on the plant cover, the botany of the range, and the possibility of introducing new species of greater value have been carried out by the Forest Service. Responsibility for administration of the area, and for coordination of all studies thereon, is also vested in the Forest Service. The impact of wild animal life on the plant cover has become recognized as an important factor and one regarding which little attention has been paid and on which data are limited. Studies of these matters have been carried out by the Division of Wildlife Research, Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of the Interior. The economic aspects of the livestock industry, ranch organization and management, land values, proper-sized units and general practice in the entire granite area surrounding the experimental area will have a bearing on conclusions to be drawn after biological data on plant and animal life have been accumulated. Information toward this end has been gathered by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics of the University of California. Game animals and birds are coming to be recognized as an asset to open patented lands through game management and controlled hunting programs. Valley quail are one of the most important upland species in this regard. Studies of these game birds on the Range lands have been made by the Division of Zoology of the University Agricultural Ex- periment Station in cooperation with the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior, and the California Division of Fish and Game. Several other units of the University have actively participated in the program. For example, the Department of Forestry has made exten- sive chemical studies of the principal forage species, the Division of Soils has covered the Range area with a detailed soil survey, and the Division of Agronomy is cooperating in the revegetation work. The Divi- sion of Agricultural Extension organized the important advisory com- mittee and cooperates in many other ways. The cooperating agencies, with their personnel, are enumerated in more detail in acknowledgments appearing in another section of this bulletin. It can thus be seen that on the San Joaquin Experimental Range, conceived and developed by the California Forest and Range Experi- ment Station, a comprehensive group consideration and attack on the problems of the range lands of California have been developed. The University has encouraged the cooperation of its specialists wherever their specialized knowledge was needed to direct and assist in accumula- tion of pertinent data. The data presented in the seven sections of this report by a total of eighteen authors constitute the information obtained 6 University of California—Experiment Station by the group attack on the range problems encountered from the begin- ning of the studies in 1934 up to 1940. The purpose of this publication is to picture the San Joaquin Experimental Range with the kinds of going work and to report on progress and the findings to date. Such aspects of the work as have already been reported upon appear in "Literature Cited," at the end of the bulletin. THE EXPERIMENTAL AREA M. W. Talbot, J. W. Nelson, and E. E. Storie The San Joaquin Experimental Range is located near the center of the state in the heart of the granite-soil section of the Sierra Nevada foothills in Madera County adjacent to the Sierra National Forest, 23 miles northeast of Madera and 28 miles north of Fresno.

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