Investigation into seed collection practices and shrub manipulations to improve sustainable seed yield in wildland stands of bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata)

Abstract

The Great Basin is a series of unique ecosystems. Starting at the western edge of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California it stretches east to the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. In the north it starts in central Oregon and Idaho and stretches south through out most of Nevada. In all the Great Basin is found in five states of the western U.S. The Great Basin supports three dominant plant communities: sagebrush, salt desert, and pinyon-juniper (BLM 2000). Sagebrush communities, consisting of a mix of shrubs, perennial grasses, and forbs, are the Great Basin's most common. The whole basin was at one time a continuous system of native bunchgrasses and plants, woodlands and forests; this is not the case today, what once was described as an "ocean of sagebrush" (Welch, 2005) is now an ocean of exotic weeds and threatened native plant communities.

Citation

Roberts, F. Leland. 2007. Investigation into seed collection practices and shrub manipulations to improve sustainable seed yield in wildland stands of bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University. 35 p. Thesis.