Restoring Basin Wildrye Grasslands at Great Basin: The First Season

Great Basin National Park's "Forgotten Grasslands" project aims to restore Basin wildrye ecosystems. The work was surveyed for archeological clearance during fiscal year 2017, and in spring 2018 the park began putting the restoration into practice. Park ecologist Gretchen Baker reported on the first season.

What was done

• Invasive grasses — patches of cheatgrass and crested wheatgrass — were sprayed.
• Monitoring plots were set up to record conditions before treatment.
• Thinning began.

A five-person Nevada Conservation Corps crew, sponsored by the Great Basin Institute, spent twelve weeks at the park. For five of those weeks they cut pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla) and Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) near the park entrance. They left the larger trees and cut those 8 inches or less in diameter at breast height, giving the sagebrush and grasses beneath more room. They thinned about 15 acres.

Before: a thinning area along the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, photographed under clear blue June skies. NPS photo.

After: the same area in August, when smoky haze filled the sky on many days. NPS photo.

The thinning opened up the landscape and also makes a better fire break.

What comes next

More crews were to come that fall and in later years to finish the project, which also includes seeding native species and planting Basin wildrye.

Sources

• Gretchen Baker, "First Season of Great Basin Wildrye Implementation," The Midden — Great Basin National Park, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Summer 2018), National Park Service. The article's "Nevada Conservation Corp" is corrected to Corps.