The Kite Camp Grazing and Fire Study

The Kite Camp Project was conducted on a 35,000-acre portion of the W.T. Waggoner Estate in north Texas called the Kite Camp that is dominated by the woody plant, honey mesquite.  The goal of the project was to determine if prescribed fire was a  sustainable means of reducing mesquite encroachment into rangelands that were utilized for cattle production.  This multidisciplinary landscape-scale study determined if rotational grazing systems would enable managers to defer grazing in small portions of the total system in order to allow herbaceous plants to grow and serve as fine fuel for fire to suppress woody plants.  The study compared 4 pasture: 1 herd with fire (4:1+fire), 8 pasture, 1 herd with fire (8:1+fire), 4 pasture, 1 herd with herbicide spray (4:1+spray) and an untreated continuously grazed control.  Different pastures in the 8:1+fire and 4:1+fire were deferred and burned in different years.  Principle investigators were Richard Teague, Jim Ansley, Bill Pinchak and Jim McGrann.

PUBLICATIONS

Teague, W.R., W.E. Grant, U.P. Kreuter, H. Diaz-Solis, S. Dube, M.M. Kothmann, W.E. Pinchak, and R.J. Ansley. 2008. An ecological economic simulation model for assessing fire and grazing management effects on mesquite rangelands in Texas.  Ecological Economics 64: 611-624.

Ansley, R.J., W.R. Teague and W.E. Pinchak. 2007.  Mesquite cover responses in rotational grazing/prescribed fire management systems: landscape assessment using aerial images.  Pages 73-78 In: R.Sosebee et al. (comp.) Proceedings 13th Wildland Shrub Symposium - Shrubland Dynamics: Fire and Water, USDA For. Serv. Rocky Mtn. Res. Sta. Pub. RMRS-P-47, 173 p.

Teague, W.R., R.J. Ansley, J.M. McGrann and W.E. Pinchak.  2001.  Developing sustainable grazing management strategies for mesquite rangeland.  Pages 493-502 In: Proceedings: First National Conference on Grazing Lands - Heightening the Awareness of the Economic and Environmental benefits of Grazing Lands, Las Vegas, Nevada, 5-8 December 2000.

Teague, W.R., R.J. Ansley, J.M. McGrann and W.E. Pinchak.  1999.  Developing sustainable management strategies for mesquite rangeland: Summary of Kite Camp results 1995-1998.  Pages 68-73, In: W.R. Teague (ed.), Rolling Plains Ranching Systems Report, Vernon Center Tech. Rep. 99-10, Vernon, TX, 81 pp.  

Ansley, R.J., W. R. Teague, and W. E. Pinchak.  1999.  The cost of burning medium-sized pastures for mesquite control: data from the Kite Camp study.  Page 21, In: W.R. Teague (ed.), Rolling Plains Ranching Systems Report, Vernon Center Tech. Rep. 99-10, Vernon, TX, 81 pp.  

Ansley, R.J., W. R. Teague, and W. E. Pinchak.  1999.  Prescribed burning on the Kite Camp project: summary of progress 1995-1999.  Pages 26-27, In: W.R. Teague (ed.), Rolling Plains Ranching Systems Report, Vernon Center Tech. Rep. 99-10, Vernon, TX, 81 pp.

Teague, R., R. Borchardt, J. Ansley, B. Pinchak, J. Cox, J. Foy and J. McGrann.  1997.  Sustainable management strategies for mesquite rangeland: the Waggoner Kite project.  Rangelands 19: 4-8.