Healthy Plant Populations: It's All About the BUZZ
By Caitlin Richards
Did you know pollinators are just as important in a healthy rangeland as water and sunlight? To have a healthy plant population for livestock and wildlife, a diverse set of pollinators is the key. Using pollinators as an evaluation factor for pastures can be a good tool for overall rangeland management, as well.
Ricky Linex, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) wildlife biologist, says that pollinators and native plants are forever intertwined. As a certified biologist by the Wildlife Society and a certified professional in range management by the Society for Range Management, Linex shares that while the grasses that livestock and wildlife eat are wind pollinated and do not require insect or mammal pollination, the forbs, flowering shrubs and trees do.
“I’m sure most ranchers know that cattle eat more than grass,” Linex says. “A lot of the plants that they’re eating, in addition to the grasses, have to have pollinators.”
Wildlife also depends on a healthy plant population of forbs, shrubs and trees just as much as cattle. These forbs, shrubs and trees are considered native plants unless they were introduced. But more than likely, they are native plants to the area. A healthy plant population within a rangeland consists of a diverse population of predominately native plants and grasses.
“Diversity is always important, whether you’re in the cattle business or the wildlife business,” Linex says. “The more diverse your landscape is the healthier it is, and there are more plants the cattle can choose to eat on any given week or day. If you’re a wildlife person, the more diverse the habitat, then the more valuable it is for wildlife and with the resulting monetary value.”
Furthermore, diversity in native plants provides ranchers with a buffer to protect calves and a variety of food sources for a sustained wildlife ecosystem. With a good, diverse mix of forbs, shrubs and trees, a lot of seeds are being produced. When that occurs, a chain reaction begins to happen.
“Mice and rabbits are eating the seeds and that provides a food source for bobcats, foxes and coyotes — animals that would try to eat calves,” Linex says. “So these plants provide a buffer by providing another food source for the predators and reducing the chances of cattle being harmed.”
Cattle and wildlife both depend on these native plants and native plants depend upon pollinators. Pollinators are very important to flowering plants like forbs, shrubs and trees because without the pollinators the plants would not be able to move their pollen to flower and reproduce.
“It’s said that 75 percent of the flowering plants on the earth require some degree of pollinators to set seed and fruit,” Linex says. “Quite a large percentage of the forbs, flowering shrubs and trees that are out here [in Texas] require pollinators.”
Bumblebees, honeybees and butterflies are often what come to mind when pollinators are mentioned. Those are some of the most popular, but they are not the only ones. Flies and beetles are also notable pollinators. It isn’t enough to have just one of these pollinators out in rangelands for a healthy plant population as again, diversity is key.
“Diversity is really what nature is all about,” Linex says. “We’re all about trying to increase the diversity of plants, and to increase that plant diversity, we have to have a diversity of pollinators that can match those plants.”
When looking out at a rangeland, no plant species is alike. There are tall and small species and big and little flower species. Not all plants are created equal, and not all pollinators are created equal. Plants often require specific pollinators. For example, long tubular flower plants require a pollinator with a long proboscis or snout that can reach the nectar.
The most accurate and efficient pollinators are the many species of bees — bumblebees, solitary and social bees, and the introduced honeybees. They are more specialized to draw the nectar and pollen out of the flowers to pollinate the plants.
Beetles are the most diverse pollinators, with 30,000 species found in North America. However, they don’t travel as much and pollinate more through contact. Butterflies and moths are also pollinators, but their active time as adults is spent searching for nectar more so than for pollen. No pollinator is necessarily better for a rangeland than another is, though.
“The size of the flower determines the size of the pollinator,” Linex says. “So the more diverse the types of pollinators we have, the more plants can be pollinated.”
This goes back to creating a healthy rangeland for livestock and wildlife. Linex stresses that you really can’t have one without the other. For ranchers to have a diverse population of pollinators and plants, they should see flowering plants during three seasons of the year — spring, summer and fall.
“When the weather warms up in the spring, we need wildflowers blooming,” Linex says. “Then we need flowers in the summer and flowers in the fall, as well.”
It’s usually not a problem to have native plants that flower in the spring and summer, and therefore lots of pollinators. The fall is the critical period. It is harder to find native plant species that flower at that time, and there is an increase in pollinators that are migrating. Therefore, maintaining a diverse population of pollinators becomes more difficult.
“We need pollinator plants in 3 seasons of the year, and especially in the fall, in order to have diverse and healthy plant populations,” Linex says.
Managing for pollinators
Luckily, there are things a rancher can do to improve the native plant communities and therefore pollinator community. It is very traditional, but checking the stocking rate to make sure the rangeland is not overstocked is key, Linex says.
“If they’re overstocked and there is not enough grass, the cattle are going to have to eat something,” he explains. “They will then have to go to forbs and browse to eat.”
The forbs and browse plants would be the flowering plants in those pastures at that time. Stocking rate adjustments should be made to prevent this from happening. Linex suggests setting up some sort of rotational grazing, which would rest pastures in the fall, thus allowing for a greater population of native plants to flower rather than being consumed.
There are also specialized plantings that can be done to increase the diversity of native fall-flowering plants. Local extension agents and NRCS conservationists can help ranchers identify native fall-flowering plants for specialized plantings.
“Doing those things,” Linex says, “would go a long way toward helping the pollinator species have available plants.”
He suggests that the time to start making adjustments to livestock numbers is April 1 and July 1. This will ensure that overstocking isn’t happening and preventing native fall-flowering plants from flowering.
In April, if the pasture has a rough, shaggy look with some tallness to it, then it is in good shape at that stocking rate. Linex says that most range sites in Texas have grown two-thirds of their grass by July 1, so if it has been a dry year up until July 1, a stocking rate adjustment would need to be made.
“We hope that if they make those adjustments,” Linex says, “come fall they will see flowering plants and have lots of pollinators buzzing around.”
In the long run, creating rangeland with a diverse plant population improves the bottom line of an operation. It ensures livestock and wildlife will always have something in the pasture to graze, whether it is a grass, forb or some other native plant.
“The wildlife and livestock depend upon the native plants and the native plants depend upon the pollinators,” Linex says. “That’s tying it all in as to why all native plants and pollinators are intertwined.”
So, it really is all about the buzz.
“It’s All About the BUZZ” is excerpted from the February 2017 issue of The Cattleman magazine.