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Part 6: Choosing Where to Monitor
Some Specifics for
Selecting Key Areas
Key areas should:
-
 Represent a large allotment of your ranch so information collected
from this area can be applied in general. This means they should,
as much as possible, have similar:
- Soil
- Plant composition
- Topography
- Proximity to water source
- Grazing pattern
- Stocking rate
- Be located within a single ecological site and plant community,
and not in a transitional zone.
- Contain key plant species of interest (a list of key plant
species for your area can be obtained form local land management
agencies such as Cooperative Extension or BLM).
- Represent areas with a significant amount of forage
- Be capable of or likely to show a response to management actions.
The rationale is that the response to management in key areas
will be indicative of the response on the ranch as a whole.
- Be accessible to grazing animals
You want the key area to have a high potential for measuring vegetation
changes that are tied to management practices and objectives.
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