This week’s interview is focused on one crucial aspect of desert shrubland restoration efforts - the use of pre-emergent herbicides. These pre-emergent herbicides prevent seeds from germinating without causing significant harm to most established perennials, and they are used almost universally in restoration projects in sage-steppe ecosystems to reduce the cover of invasive annual grasses. Brynne Lazarus, biologist with USGS, will be guiding us through her research on the use of pre-emergent herbicides in desert shrubland restoration efforts.

This week’s interview is focused on the Soda Fire. This megafire burned nearly 280,000 acres in Southwest Idaho and Southeast Oregon - just adjacent to the the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA - in 2015. This wildfire generated a historic response, with more resources put into restoration, emergency stabilization, and research than ever before. We’re most interested in the research that has been conducted in an effort to test the effectiveness of a variety of different restoration strategies, and our guest is USGS ecologist Cara Applestein. Cara has been conducting research on post-fire restoration at the Soda Fire site since 2015, and shares a wealth of knowledge on this topic in today’s interview.

This week’s interview is focused on the strategic challenges associated with restoring sage-steppe ecosystems in the Great Basin. Our guest is Chad Boyd, a Rangeland Scientist and Research Leader who has been based in Eastern Oregon and working on restoration projects since 1999. His work is focused on establishing strategic decision-making protocols for land managers looking to restore sage-steppe ecosystems across the Great Basin. Despite the enormity of the problem, Chad is optimistic about the future of these landscapes, and I hope this optimism rubs off on some of our listeners!