Ben Watson

Absolutely agree! I love this forum, just need to get the creative juices flowing and find a solution to make it work. Wouldn't want to be there if it were the city.

I thought I'd post an update in case anyone else has a similar issue. We ended up deciding to use the property as our wedding venue this summer, so getting things cleared out become time sensitive. We ended up borrowing a couple of backhoes from the neighbors (for the larger areas), and had a team of 4-6 manual laborers (AKA family members....) out for 4 long, sweaty weekends. In some of the tighter spots we literally removed each plant manually with a pick.

One trick that worked very, very well was to make a "noose", and use a truck to pull the sagebrush out by its roots. I took a chain, and attached a length of 3/8 cable to the end, along with a metal loop clamped on. Basically made a giant adjustable noose out of the cable that we could throw around a couple of plants and yank them out with the truck. Not super quick, but less back breaking that a pick. 1/4" cable would have been easier, but I used what I had.

I still love the idea of using goats or other livestock, and as we will be battling the stuff forever I will try this and report back. Unfortunately, as pointed out, we can't really do this until we are living there full time. If only there were jobs...

Thanks for all of the thoughts!

Ben

@Danielle Venegas - That is great news, thanks for sharing about the goats. I've found that most of the neighbors graze or grow hay on nearly their entire properties, and have continued to irrigate/maintain areas around houses and buildings that were cleared many decades ago, so hadn't been able to come up with many ideas for control. We do have a 1-1.5 acre very nicely fenced corral that is just completely overgrown with sagebrush, so I have been toying with the idea of trying to rent or borrow a group of goats to see if they will do adequate work in that more "controlled" area. Perhaps talking to a contract herder makes sense here, as you are absolutely right that having our own goats won't make sense until we are there full time.

@Michael Newby - Thanks very much for the link, I subscribed to Geoff Lawton's site and it looks to have lots of useful info. I will see what I can find as far as less intrusive plants (native or otherwise) that may do well to fill in the gaps left by clearing. The problem with trying to find good replacement plants is that not much can survive out there without significant irrigation (most of the property is flood irrigated), as the summers are warm and very dry.

Thanks for the helpful tips!

Ben

Hello all! I recently stumbled upon this site and have been having a blast reading and learning.

A little background: My girlfriend and I (soon to be fiance, ssshhhh!!) live near Sacramento, CA and are both biologists by training. I work as a consultant helping folks get through the tremendous environmental regulations we have here, and my girlfriend teaches biology at the college level. She has about 200 acres of land with a small house, stable, and pole barn in the Carson Valley, just barely on the CA side of the CA/NV border (about 20 minutes south of Carson City). The property is not occupied (hasn't been in about 15 years), but we spend most of our weekends out there fixing the house and generally trying to get things back into order, with the hope that we will be able to move out there full time in the near future. The property is largely irrigated pasture, and is grazed (cattle) and produces hay.

One of biggest issues we have been having is controlling sagebrush. The higher portions (in relative terms--maybe 5' higher than the lower portions) of the property and areas near the structures don't get irrigated, and sagebrush just takes over. We have been removing it by hand around the structures for fire reasons, but that just doesn't seem like a viable method of control over a 20-30 acre swath. Preferably I'd love to be able to use livestock to keep it back, but I haven't been able to figure out what might actually eat it? We have considered a small goat herd but have heard mixed thoughts on how this might work.

Does anyone have any suggestions on removing dense stands of sagebrush and generally keeping it under control once removed? Perhaps trying to figure out how to get irrigation on to the higher fields is our best bet?

Thanks so much for any thoughts!

Ben