RANGE Special Report:
The Value of Rest
Edited and copiled by Barbara Wies. Produced with assistance from Nevada Rangeland Resources Commission.


Pronghorn antelope graze in irrigated fields north of Buffalo, Wyo. When lands are cared for, everyone benefits, wildlife banquets. Photo © Cynthia Baldauf
When it comes to the value of resting land, opinions are as varied as wild plants. That's because a carefully prescribed time and duration of rest in one area might be of great benefit, but the same prescription just won't fit someplace else. As every rancher knows, conditions of rainfall, heat, wind, water supply and soil vary from season to season and from one side of a hill to the other. Rest can restore an area to abundance or cause its resources to literally dry up and blow away.

Ruminants (cattle, buffalo, deer, antelope, sheep, elk, etc.) need good grass. In one of those marvels of nature's harmony, they also create the conditions that allow good forage to flourish, even in dry and brittle environments. Once you understand how rest works, you can never look at a patch of ground in the same way again.

SPECIAL SECTION: The Value of Rest

  • Confessions of an Environmentalist
  • A Fence on the Border
  • A Walk in the Grass
  • Beware of Rest
  • Tall Grass Prairie
  • From the Ground Up
  • 50 Years of History
  • Rest-Rotation, Recovery
  • With & Without Grazing
  • Ranching & Research
  • What do you want this land to be?
  • Owens Creek/West Muddy Creek
  • Gone To Weed

Download The Value of Rest (PDF, 1MB).

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