Photo: Sagebrush steppe & pronghorn antelope, south of Pinedale, Wyoming. © 2018 Delena Norris-Tull
John Samson, Agronomist for the Environmental Services Department, Wyoming Department of Transportation
[Interviewed by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull, October 25, 2017. Reviewed & approved by John Samson in 2018.]
At the time of this interview, John had worked in the field of native plant reclamation for 35 years. He retired in 2022. He provided me with the following insights:
“Compared to the southern DOT states, Wyoming is not big on chemical [herbicide] management of weeds. In Wyoming, we use a lot of native species along roadways. Part of the Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) approach uses native species dynamics [i.e., allelopathic natural compounds].
“I recently attended the annual meeting of representatives from the state Departments of Transportation, the National Roadside Vegetation Management Association meeting, held in Springfield, Missouri. The southeastern states have a different approach than we have in the west. In the southeast, they have a lot more rainfall than we do. They mow roadways three-four times a year, and they plant Bermuda grass, and bahiagrass. In Wyoming, we can only afford to mow once a year, with an emphasis on roadside shoulders in rural segments. We mow in late August or September, at the end of the growing season. This is primarily due to the cost, but secondarily, we want the native plants to go to seed so they can be mulched and spread by the mowers’ pass.”
[Note from Delena: Bermuda grass and bahiagrass are now considered “invasive species” by a number of agencies in various southern states. For example, the Nature Conservancy has produced a brochure on management of bahiagrass as an invasive. The state of Florida has a number of native plant restoration projects underway that are battling bahaigrass. The Native Prairies Association of Texas now treats bahiagrass as an invasive. However, it is still touted as an important perennial grass for grazing livestock in some states in the southeastern US. For example, refer to the University of Georgia’s Cooperative Extension website on Bahiagrass: http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=B1362.
In addition, the NRCS still promotes its use, while warning of its potential to become invasive.]
John continued: “The Louisiana Department of Transportation uses private contractors to mow. Since they are paid by the acre, there is economic pressure to do repeat mowings. Keep in mind that Louisiana has invasive tall brush that gets easily out of control in one year, which is not true in arid Wyoming.
“I worked for the US Soil Conservation Service [SCS; now the NRCS] in Nebraska from 1983-1994. We worked mostly with private land owners. Today, the NRCS is mainly regulatory. They no longer do much boots-on-the-ground work with land owners. There is more emphasis on office electronic planning.
“In 1994, I came to Wyoming. I took advantage of the USDA buy-out of employees. To reduce costs during major budget cuts, during the 50th anniversary of the agency, the USDA got rid of a lot of staff, moving into a more computerized agency. As a result, the agency lost a lot of knowledge from individuals who had worked there many years, such as knowledge about the causes and impacts of the 1930s Dust Bowl years and the 1950s droughts in the Plains States. President Clinton worked with the US Congress to balance the federal budget in the 1990s. They succeeded in balancing the budget, but made a lot of budget cuts to many federal agencies in the process.
“In 1986, the USDA implemented the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). This program has survived to this day, under the NRCS assistance. Through joint funding with the federal Food Security Act, the CRP provides subsidies to land owners to put their properties into mandatory conservation reserve.Today, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) is the name of the agency that manages this program along side NRCS. Many land owners allowed their farms to go fallow (‘leaving the land alone’), sometimes for 20 years under contract rentals. Under the CRP, many more farmers in the Great Plains states signed up for the subsidies than did farmers in the eastern states. The criteria for the subsidies was that you had to have ‘highly erodible cropland’ due to wind or water erosion.”
[Note: according to the USDA agency website, the CRP is a “land conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency. In exchange for a yearly rental payment, farmers enrolled in the program agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality. Contracts for land enrolled in CRP are 10-15 years in length. The long-term goal of the program is to re-establish valuable land cover to help improve water quality, prevent soil erosion, and reduce loss of wildlife habitat. Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, CRP is the largest private-lands conservation program in the United States. Thanks to voluntary participation by farmers and land owners, CRP has improved water quality, reduced soil erosion, and increased habitat for endangered and threatened species.”
Also, according to the CRP website, “Highly erodible lands are fragile and vulnerable to erosion. For farmers and landowners with cropland exceeding an Erosion Index >20, establishing grass or tree cover will help maintain the long-term health of the land. In addition, this type of cover will
provide habitat for numerous mammal and bird species and serve as a resource for shelter, nesting, and food. Enrolling these lands also makes economic sense, as they often fall short as productive crop growing areas.”
In addition to the CRP, there are other federal programs that provide support to farmers and ranchers to promote habitat restoration, such as various programs managed through the NRCS, including the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, the Healthy Forests Reserve Program, and the Sage Grouse Initiative. Most of these federal initiatives are funded through the Farm Bill. [Refer to the chapter on the Farm Bill.]
John added: “In the 1960s, certain agricultural chemicals were used on the land a lot, on annual row crops [Note: Refer to the chapter on Herbicides and Pesticides, for some of the history of use of chemicals in the US]. Under the CRP, land owners tended to re-seed the cropland with introduced grasses, such as tall fescue and smooth brome [Note: these introduced grasses are now considered to be invasive species in some areas of the US]. Native grass seed was not readily available in the early years, so it was not used much.
“When I was working for the SCS in Nebraska, we pushed to promote re-seeding with cool and warm season native grasses. We tried to grow native grass seed for land owners to use. This extended the limited commercial native seed supplies available in the mid-1980s.
“In the past 15 years, federal agencies are promoting native grass seed much more. For example, in Iowa, along roadsides, there used to be mainly introduced tall fescue and smooth brome. Now there are a lot of native tall grass species in roadways, thanks to the Iowa DOT and the University of Northern Iowa Roadside Program.
“Wyoming is largely a high desert. It is very difficult to dryland farm here without irrigation. I use all native species in the plantings in the Wyoming roadways. We divide the state up into five Ecoregions, and use the dominant natives from that region: the Black Hills, the Northern Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains east and foothills, the Rocky Mountains west and foothills, and the Wyoming Basin [also called the Red Desert, a very high desert split by the Continental Divide].
“We’re using indigenous grasses, forbs, and shrubs. We are careful about where we plant large forbs and shrubs, so that they are not planted too close to roadways. We have to be careful about animals hiding in rubber rabbitbrush and big sagebrush, for example. I examine WYDOT road safety data for animal hotspots, to reduce the incidents of automobile collisions caused by game animals.
“Native seed planting occurs through both the Wyoming DOT and the BLM [US Bureau of Land Management]. I am in charge of all the planting plans done through the Wyoming DOT.
“Today, we buy gravel, rock, etc., for the right-of-ways from private land owners. Some of the contracts we have with land owners are decades old. Sometimes I have to compromise, and use some introduced species, to please these land owners. The Wyoming Reclamation Policy, through the BLM State Office, already requires the use of ‘self-perpetuating native plant community’on BLM pits, plant sites, and quarries used on WYDOT projects.
“Native American tribal members have an arrangement with the Wyoming DOT. They harvest culturally significant forbs and grasses in the Wyoming roadways in the summer or early fall, before we mow the roadways.
“The Wyoming coal mines still operating are planting native species in their reclamation projects under the WYDEQ-LQ Division.
“Kochia tumbleweeds are so large that they can present a high wind hazard to motorists. Kochia has become resistant to the triazines [a broad spectrum, Group 5 herbicide. Refer to the chapter on Herbicides and Perticides]. We used to use triazines but we no longer use them due to the damage they did to some crops on alkaline soils. We had a similar problem with Dicamba and wind drift, and a lot of the Group 2 herbicides (ALS inhibitors). A lot of herbicides have the same mode of action, which is why an invasive species will eventually become resistant not just to one herbicide, but a variety of herbicides in that Action Group.”
The evolution of the chemical industry
John commented: “International chemical companies are merging together. They have not changed new product development the way they did things over the past years.
“At the latest annual national meeting of the Roadside Vegetation Management Association, I noticed that only three major chemical companies attended: Bayer, Dow AgroScience, and BASF. Currently, Bayer is purchasing Monsanto.
“Smaller chemical companies are now able to reformulate name-brand chemicals to make generic, less expensive chemicals. You can check the herbicide label (EPA) to see who is actually reformulating the given product.
“Weed and Pest management in Wyoming and Montana is 90-95% herbicides.
“The State of Texas does their own spraying and training, but this has resulted in uneven management of roadways.
“As of a few years ago, the Pennsylvania DOT was spending $20 million annually on roadside herbicide spraying and mowing.
“Wyoming is now spending up to $3-4 million a year in roadside herbicide spraying contracts. The state of Wyoming contracts out the herbicide spraying to the County Weed and Pest organizations, less so to private spray contractors. This has been a very effective and economical system.
“In Wyoming, roadside mowing is done primarily for control of blowing snow. It helps restrict the development of black ice by reducing glazing on the safety shoulder and adjacent travel lane in early storm event ahead of snow plows applying deicer.
“The Wyoming wood snow fences are found throughout the state and in other western states, such as Montana. Around 1970, Wyoming started created some living snow fences on newly constructed sections of I-80. The state has continued this project with flat, but consistent funding, each year. Other states (Colorado and maybe Montana) are starting to use living fences. We use state forestry nurseries to provide the plant material for living fences. We use Rocky Mountain juniper and Ponderosa Pine – at least we did use the pine, before the pine beetle became a problem. Ips bark beetles are starting to effect the Colorado spruce.
“In Cheyenne, there is now a historical museum at the former ARS Plant Introduction Station, that was active in Wyoming, starting in the 1930s.”
[Note: Within this website, also refer to the section Native Plants].
Links to additional interviews:
John Samson, Agronomist for the Environmental Services Department, Wyoming Department of Transportation
[Interviewed by Dr. Delena Norris-Tull, October 25, 2017. Reviewed & approved by John Samson in 2018.]
At the time of this interview, John had worked in the field of native plant reclamation for 35 years. He retired in 2022. He provided me with the following insights:
“Compared to the southern DOT states, Wyoming is not big on chemical [herbicide] management of weeds. In Wyoming, we use a lot of native species along roadways. Part of the Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) approach uses native species dynamics [i.e., allelopathic natural compounds].
“I recently attended the annual meeting of representatives from the state Departments of Transportation, the National Roadside Vegetation Management Association meeting, held in Springfield, Missouri. The southeastern states have a different approach than we have in the west. In the southeast, they have a lot more rainfall than we do. They mow roadways three-four times a year, and they plant Bermuda grass, and bahiagrass. In Wyoming, we can only afford to mow once a year, with an emphasis on roadside shoulders in rural segments. We mow in late August or September, at the end of the growing season. This is primarily due to the cost, but secondarily, we want the native plants to go to seed so they can be mulched and spread by the mowers’ pass.”
[Note from Delena: Bermuda grass and bahiagrass are now considered “invasive species” by a number of agencies in various southern states. For example, the Nature Conservancy has produced a brochure on management of bahiagrass as an invasive. The state of Florida has a number of native plant restoration projects underway that are battling bahaigrass. The Native Prairies Association of Texas now treats bahiagrass as an invasive. However, it is still touted as an important perennial grass for grazing livestock in some states in the southeastern US. For example, refer to the University of Georgia’s Cooperative Extension website on Bahiagrass: http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=B1362.
In addition, the NRCS still promotes its use, while warning of its potential to become invasive.]
John continued: “The Louisiana Department of Transportation uses private contractors to mow. Since they are paid by the acre, there is economic pressure to do repeat mowings. Keep in mind that Louisiana has invasive tall brush that gets easily out of control in one year, which is not true in arid Wyoming.
“I worked for the US Soil Conservation Service [SCS; now the NRCS] in Nebraska from 1983-1994. We worked mostly with private land owners. Today, the NRCS is mainly regulatory. They no longer do much boots-on-the-ground work with land owners. There is more emphasis on office electronic planning.
“In 1994, I came to Wyoming. I took advantage of the USDA buy-out of employees. To reduce costs during major budget cuts, during the 50th anniversary of the agency, the USDA got rid of a lot of staff, moving into a more computerized agency. As a result, the agency lost a lot of knowledge from individuals who had worked there many years, such as knowledge about the causes and impacts of the 1930s Dust Bowl years and the 1950s droughts in the Plains States. President Clinton worked with the US Congress to balance the federal budget in the 1990s. They succeeded in balancing the budget, but made a lot of budget cuts to many federal agencies in the process.
“In 1986, the USDA implemented the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). This program has survived to this day, under the NRCS assistance. Through joint funding with the federal Food Security Act, the CRP provides subsidies to land owners to put their properties into mandatory conservation reserve.Today, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) is the name of the agency that manages this program along side NRCS. Many land owners allowed their farms to go fallow (‘leaving the land alone’), sometimes for 20 years under contract rentals. Under the CRP, many more farmers in the Great Plains states signed up for the subsidies than did farmers in the eastern states. The criteria for the subsidies was that you had to have ‘highly erodible cropland’ due to wind or water erosion.”
[Note: according to the USDA agency website, the CRP is a “land conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency. In exchange for a yearly rental payment, farmers enrolled in the program agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality. Contracts for land enrolled in CRP are 10-15 years in length. The long-term goal of the program is to re-establish valuable land cover to help improve water quality, prevent soil erosion, and reduce loss of wildlife habitat. Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, CRP is the largest private-lands conservation program in the United States. Thanks to voluntary participation by farmers and land owners, CRP has improved water quality, reduced soil erosion, and increased habitat for endangered and threatened species.”
Also, according to the CRP website, “Highly erodible lands are fragile and vulnerable to erosion. For farmers and landowners with cropland exceeding an Erosion Index >20, establishing grass or tree cover will help maintain the long-term health of the land. In addition, this type of cover will
provide habitat for numerous mammal and bird species and serve as a resource for shelter, nesting, and food. Enrolling these lands also makes economic sense, as they often fall short as productive crop growing areas.”
In addition to the CRP, there are other federal programs that provide support to farmers and ranchers to promote habitat restoration, such as various programs managed through the NRCS, including the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, the Healthy Forests Reserve Program, and the Sage Grouse Initiative. Most of these federal initiatives are funded through the Farm Bill. [Refer to the chapter on the Farm Bill.]
John added: “In the 1960s, certain agricultural chemicals were used on the land a lot, on annual row crops [Note: Refer to the chapter on Herbicides and Pesticides, for some of the history of use of chemicals in the US]. Under the CRP, land owners tended to re-seed the cropland with introduced grasses, such as tall fescue and smooth brome [Note: these introduced grasses are now considered to be invasive species in some areas of the US]. Native grass seed was not readily available in the early years, so it was not used much.
“When I was working for the SCS in Nebraska, we pushed to promote re-seeding with cool and warm season native grasses. We tried to grow native grass seed for land owners to use. This extended the limited commercial native seed supplies available in the mid-1980s.
“In the past 15 years, federal agencies are promoting native grass seed much more. For example, in Iowa, along roadsides, there used to be mainly introduced tall fescue and smooth brome. Now there are a lot of native tall grass species in roadways, thanks to the Iowa DOT and the University of Northern Iowa Roadside Program.
“Wyoming is largely a high desert. It is very difficult to dryland farm here without irrigation. I use all native species in the plantings in the Wyoming roadways. We divide the state up into five Ecoregions, and use the dominant natives from that region: the Black Hills, the Northern Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains east and foothills, the Rocky Mountains west and foothills, and the Wyoming Basin [also called the Red Desert, a very high desert split by the Continental Divide].
“We’re using indigenous grasses, forbs, and shrubs. We are careful about where we plant large forbs and shrubs, so that they are not planted too close to roadways. We have to be careful about animals hiding in rubber rabbitbrush and big sagebrush, for example. I examine WYDOT road safety data for animal hotspots, to reduce the incidents of automobile collisions caused by game animals.
“Native seed planting occurs through both the Wyoming DOT and the BLM [US Bureau of Land Management]. I am in charge of all the planting plans done through the Wyoming DOT.
“Today, we buy gravel, rock, etc., for the right-of-ways from private land owners. Some of the contracts we have with land owners are decades old. Sometimes I have to compromise, and use some introduced species, to please these land owners. The Wyoming Reclamation Policy, through the BLM State Office, already requires the use of ‘self-perpetuating native plant community’on BLM pits, plant sites, and quarries used on WYDOT projects.
“Native American tribal members have an arrangement with the Wyoming DOT. They harvest culturally significant forbs and grasses in the Wyoming roadways in the summer or early fall, before we mow the roadways.
“The Wyoming coal mines still operating are planting native species in their reclamation projects under the WYDEQ-LQ Division.
“Kochia tumbleweeds are so large that they can present a high wind hazard to motorists. Kochia has become resistant to the triazines [a broad spectrum, Group 5 herbicide. Refer to the chapter on Herbicides and Perticides]. We used to use triazines but we no longer use them due to the damage they did to some crops on alkaline soils. We had a similar problem with Dicamba and wind drift, and a lot of the Group 2 herbicides (ALS inhibitors). A lot of herbicides have the same mode of action, which is why an invasive species will eventually become resistant not just to one herbicide, but a variety of herbicides in that Action Group.”
The evolution of the chemical industry
John commented: “International chemical companies are merging together. They have not changed new product development the way they did things over the past years.
“At the latest annual national meeting of the Roadside Vegetation Management Association, I noticed that only three major chemical companies attended: Bayer, Dow AgroScience, and BASF. Currently, Bayer is purchasing Monsanto.
“Smaller chemical companies are now able to reformulate name-brand chemicals to make generic, less expensive chemicals. You can check the herbicide label (EPA) to see who is actually reformulating the given product.
“Weed and Pest management in Wyoming and Montana is 90-95% herbicides.
“The State of Texas does their own spraying and training, but this has resulted in uneven management of roadways.
“As of a few years ago, the Pennsylvania DOT was spending $20 million annually on roadside herbicide spraying and mowing.
“Wyoming is now spending up to $3-4 million a year in roadside herbicide spraying contracts. The state of Wyoming contracts out the herbicide spraying to the County Weed and Pest organizations, less so to private spray contractors. This has been a very effective and economical system.
“In Wyoming, roadside mowing is done primarily for control of blowing snow. It helps restrict the development of black ice by reducing glazing on the safety shoulder and adjacent travel lane in early storm event ahead of snow plows applying deicer.
“The Wyoming wood snow fences are found throughout the state and in other western states, such as Montana. Around 1970, Wyoming started created some living snow fences on newly constructed sections of I-80. The state has continued this project with flat, but consistent funding, each year. Other states (Colorado and maybe Montana) are starting to use living fences. We use state forestry nurseries to provide the plant material for living fences. We use Rocky Mountain juniper and Ponderosa Pine – at least we did use the pine, before the pine beetle became a problem. Ips bark beetles are starting to effect the Colorado spruce.
“In Cheyenne, there is now a historical museum at the former ARS Plant Introduction Station, that was active in Wyoming, starting in the 1930s.”
[Note: Within this website, also refer to the section Native Plants].
Links to additional interviews: