Circular no. sto 



- ^o 



May 1951 • Washington, D. C. 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE- 



Efficient Use of Annual Plants on Cattle 

 Ranges in the California Foothills 



By, J. R. Bentley„ range conservationist, and M. W. Talbot, associate director, 1 

 California Forest and Range Experiment Station 2 



INTRODUCTION 



The California foothills (fig. 1) comprise the most important range 

 area within the State. These lands border the great Central Valley 

 and enclose numerous smaller valleys within the Coast Ranges. Primary 

 use of foothill range lands is production of livestock. This use is closely 

 associated with the highly intensified valley agriculture, which supplies 

 hay, grain, and agricultural byproducts to supplement range forage 

 and furnishes seasonal pasturage for livestock carried part of the year on 

 foothill range. Also, some of the livestock are grazed during the summer 

 in the mountainous lands above the foothills. But by far the greatest 

 part of the State's range grazing capacity is in the foothills. 



The foothill area has relatively mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. 

 Thus, some green forage is available during the fall and winter, plant 

 growth is at its height during the spring, but the plants are dry during 

 the summer and early fall. 



Annual plants dominate the herbaceous cover and occur with varying 

 amounts of bunchgrasses and other perennial species. This cover is 

 found over the grass and woodland-grass vegetative types, as well as 

 the more open phases of the chaparral. 



1 Credit is due to two former forest ecologists of the California Forest and Range 

 Experiment Station: F. G. Renner, who was in charge of planning, establishing, 

 and supervising the forage experiments in 1934-35, and H. H. Biswell, in charge of 

 the experiments 1936-40. Assistance in sampling of forage and in compilation and 

 analysis of data was obtained from members of the staff of the California Forest and 

 Range Experiment Station and from many temporary field assistants and members 

 of emergency agencies, particularly Civilian Conservation Corps and Civilian Public 

 Service. 



2 Maintained by the Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, in coopera- 

 tion with the University of California at Berkeley, Calif. 



1 



