A Rough, Tough Forage for Rangeland Cattle Angus cows grazing on
grass and forage kochia in Utah. Ranchers in the Intermountain
West can reduce feeding costs by grazing their animals on forage
kochia in fall and winter. Forage kochia (Kochia prostrata) is a
shrubby Asian native that has found a new home on western U.S.
rangelands. And although it is not invasive, it is still
sometimes more resilient than the North American native plants.
“In some rangeland soils, it’s difficult to successfully reseed
with native plants,” says geneticist Blair Waldron, who works at
the Agricultural Research Service’s Forage and Range Research
Laboratory in Logan, Utah. “But we’ve shown that forage kochia
can be established to enhance rangelands and compete with
cheatgrass successfully. It can even protect against wildfires.
Some people said that livestock won’t eat it, but we’ve found
that cows will graze kochia—and that they even prefer it over
lupine, which can be toxic to pregnant cattle.” Waldron and his
research partners