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Old 04-12-2014, 11:30 AM
 
8,317 posts, read 29,357,988 times
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^For some fairly depressing reading about SLV water, read the following from the Rio Grande Water Conservancy District, noting especially the required "dry-up" of previously irrigated lands that is going to be required to meet streamflow and aquifer recharge obligations: http://www.rgwcd.org/attachments/sub...20forecast.pdf

A salient paragraph quoted here:

Quote:
Section III, Part D of the Subdistrict #1’s Plan of Water Management (POWM) pertains to “Restoration of Ground Water Levels and Groundwater Storage”. The POWM states: “It is anticipated that to achieve sufficient reduction of well withdrawals to accomplish the Unconfined Aquifer storage goal, dry-up of approximately 40,000 acres of land previously irrigated during calendar year 2000 will be required.”
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Old 04-24-2014, 11:55 AM
 
Location: Michigan
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I was thinking the same thing about clearing the sagebrush. I always thought it would be a good hiding spot for snakes and I wanted to eliminate mine too. Plus as much as the locals might love them I find them to be hideous and dead looking.

Can I also ask if there are scorpions in the SLV ?
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Old 04-24-2014, 08:41 PM
 
Location: Where the mountains touch the sky
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There are three types of scorpions in Colorado. The one I have seen in the SLV is the common striped bark scorpion. It has been mentioned earlier on this thread, why move to a place where you find the native landscape to be "hideous"? The west is covered in sage brush, yucca, cactus.

Last edited by StarrySkiesAbove; 04-24-2014 at 08:52 PM..
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Old 04-25-2014, 07:58 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StarrySkiesAbove View Post
It has been mentioned earlier on this thread, why move to a place where you find the native landscape to be "hideous"? The west is covered in sage brush, yucca, cactus.
Absolutely agree. In most of the SLV, if you remove the sagebrush, all there will be is dry dirt. I wonder what it takes to make flatlanders from the Midwest and East understand that the SLV is a HIGH DESERT.
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Old 05-01-2014, 04:36 PM
 
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If you can get a hold of lots of wood , from logs to wood chips, hay ,straw etc you could start layering that in and around the sagebrush. This will slowly build up the soil and hold moisture from snow and rains. Snow fences will help with moisture retention and blocking the wind. After several years of adding organic materials you should be able to encourage native grasses and flowers and remove more sagebrush. Be sure to plant a few trees that will grow in the area too. They will add shade and leaf mulch and also block wind. For more info on changing the area over time take a look at the teachings of permaculture. They also talk a lot about alternative housing.
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Old 05-01-2014, 04:58 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyomiles View Post
If you can get a hold of lots of wood , from logs to wood chips, hay ,straw etc you could start layering that in and around the sagebrush. This will slowly build up the soil and hold moisture from snow and rains. Snow fences will help with moisture retention and blocking the wind. After several years of adding organic materials you should be able to encourage native grasses and flowers and remove more sagebrush. Be sure to plant a few trees that will grow in the area too. They will add shade and leaf mulch and also block wind. For more info on changing the area over time take a look at the teachings of permaculture. They also talk a lot about alternative housing.
It won't work in a climate that gets less than 8" of precipitation PER YEAR. Contrary to popular belief, the valley floor of the San Luis Valley gets very little snow. Snow fences don't have any snow to block. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of the SLV's very meager annual precipitation comes from mid-July to late August in sporadic and widely spaced thunderstorms. I don't know what it takes for people to understand that the native sagebrush and greasewood in the SLV is there because that is the ONLY vegetation that most of the SLV floor will support without artificial irrigation. If anyone is thinking otherwise, they just need to GET OVER IT!
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Old 05-08-2014, 10:06 PM
 
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Well, I have spent 27 years of my life in the sagebrush. My experience tells me that it works. To each there own I guess.
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Old 05-09-2014, 01:40 AM
 
Location: CO/UT/AZ/NM Catch me if you can!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyomiles View Post
Well, I have spent 27 years of my life in the sagebrush. My experience tells me that it works. To each there own I guess.
If you've spent 27 years in the sagebrush then your experience is that the sagebrush is still there regardless of whatever wood chips you've attempted to use as mulch. I've spent at least twice that many years gardening in Colorado's arid climate. Wood chips will not turn into great soil that somehow causes the sage to wither and die while the rest of the desert blooms. You can amend clay soils with wood chips to make the soil more permeable, but that's just the opening salvo in what will be an eternal, on-going war. You may win a bit of territory here and there, but when you glance out from your fortress, there will still be an ocean of sage surrounding you on all sides. Love it or leave it.

I often think this forum should have some sort of permanent stickie thread warning out-of-staters about the REAL conditions in the San Luis Valley, including plenty of photos showing what it actually looks like. People who have never seen it are usually misled by photoshopped images like the ones I've seen in leading publications which make the San Luis Valley look as green as the Appalachians - only with more majestic snow clad peaks than what you'd normally find in West Virginia.

The Four Corners is warmer than the SLV and until the drought from hell came along also got more water. Despite these relative climatic amenities over the SLV, homeowners here often have front yards which feature deliberate displays of large healthy sage bushes flanked by extravagant stands of chamisa as tall as 6 feet or more. Such landscaping is pleasing to the eye (and nose - our sage is wonderfully aromatic) of one who loves the Western landscape and has a sense of place. Those who would eradicate all the sage should simply not move here and instead seek a home where the surroundings are more to their liking in the first place.


Attached Thumbnails
Questions about land in SLVR / Blanca-chamisa-mesa.jpg  

Last edited by Colorado Rambler; 05-09-2014 at 02:03 AM..
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Old 05-10-2014, 08:37 PM
 
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Sagebrush is actually a pretty good barometer of soil quality. If the sagebrush is healthy and tall, the soil is generally of pretty fair quality. What limits other plant growth in sagebrush areas is the quantity and timing of precipitation. Overgrazing can also kill off native grass species and sagebrush will colonize those areas.

I've lived in both Colorado and Wyoming, and the climate in Wyoming is considerably different than that of southern Colorado. Typically the sagebrush steppes of the north central and northwestern part of Colorado, and most of Wyoming get a fair amount of winter precipitation, along with most of their warm season precipitation in late spring through early July. The SLV and most of the sagebrush steppes of south central and southwestern Colorado get less winter precipitation, and don't get much warm season precipitation until mid-July through the end of August. That difference makes grass germination and growth much more difficult in the southern Rockies sagebrush steppes.

Many of the non-natives who look at the vegetation in the SLV mistake greasewood (chico brush) and rabbitbrush (chamisa) for sage. Though they may all grow together in some spots, greasewood and rabbitbrush--especially greasewood--are a strong indicator of poor quality, very high alkaline soils. Much of the floor of the SLV is absolutely covered with greasewood, indicative of high alkalinity. That goes, too, for many, many tens of thousands of acres in Colorado's lower elevation Western valleys.

By the way, the various types of sagebrush (artemesia family) are one the oldest known species of plants, dating back to the earliest days of good ol' Earth.
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Old 05-11-2014, 03:33 AM
 
Location: CO/UT/AZ/NM Catch me if you can!
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^^^

Some things never change. In 1876 TS Brandegee published his “Flora of Southwestern Colorado” under the auspices of the newly formed US Geological Survey. He dismissed the San Luis Valley with these words:

"From here to the Rio Grande, the dry level country is very uninteresting
botanically. With the exception of the banks and alkaline flats of the
lakes, for thirty or forty miles we pass through a Lilliputian forest of
Bigelovia, Sarcobatus, and Atriplex... Up the Rio Grande, as far as to fifteen miles above Del Norte, nothing of interest was noticed."


In other words, a low growth of rabbitbrush, greasewood, and salt brush. Jazz is probably right in his observation that newcomers mistake these plants for sage which is completely unrelated to all 3 of these species. I suspect that much of the natural habitat of the San Luis Valley has been disturbed or outright destroyed for 150 years and more. The first Anglo settlers were eager to harness the Rio Grande for irrigation purposes and hundreds of canals and ditches were dug throughout the San Luis Valley. Homesteaders poured into the SLV by the trainload and speculation was rampant. The inevitable crash occurred with too many people trying to use too little water. However the chimera of plenty still haunts the San Luis Valley and here we are in 2014 with people as enthralled with the dream of verdant farms and water flowing everywhere as they were in the 1860’s. But try to get the hopeful newcomer from anywhere except the American West to understand this.
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