Location: Richland, WA
Land Management Agency: Bureau of Reclamation (fire, mow, tebuthiuron); US Fish and Wildlife Service, Hanford Reach National Monument (control)
Elevation: 860-940 ft
Location: Richland, WA
Topography: 1–5 % slope with a Southern aspect
Common Vegetation:
Bluebunch wheatgrass, Wyoming big sagebrush, Indian ricegrass, and bottlebrush squirreltail
Soils:
Warden, very fine sandy loam
Fire Regime:
The Wyoming big sagebrush type is the driest of the sagebrush steppe communities and historically had a fire return interval of approximately 50-100 years The introduction of cheatgrass into the sagebrush grassland communities has increased fine fuels and reduced the fire return interval to less than 10 years.
Representative Land Base:
This site is representative of sage steppe ecosystem of the Columbia Plateau of eastern Washington.
Grazing:
This site is actively grazed and will be fenced for the duration of the study to exclude livestock.
