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[GWL]: FW: Breeding Better Plants for Military Bases

I'd bet these plants would be great for a kid-proof yard, too.
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From: "ARS News Service" <isnv@ars-grin.gov>
To: "ARS News List" <ars-news@ars-grin.gov>
Subject: Breeding Better Plants for Military Bases
Date: Fri, Nov 9, 2001, 6:41 AM


STORY LEAD:
Breeding Better Plants for Military Bases

___________________________________________

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Marcia Wood, (510) 559-6070, MarciaWood@ars.usda.gov
November 9, 2001
___________________________________________


For plants on a military training site, getting run over by an assortment of
hefty, wheeled or tracked vehicles is all in a day's work. But, the Army has
a secret weapon for restoring and revegetating these sites when training
maneuvers are over.

The military has enlisted the help of a team of Agricultural Research
Service plant geneticists, led by Kay H. Asay, to develop training-resilient
plants. Now in its sixth year, the project is based at the ARS Forage and
Range Research Laboratory in Logan, Utah. It is funded by ARS and the
Department of Defense's Strategic Environment Research and Development
Program, Washington, D.C.

Asay and colleagues are developing improved lines of native and introduced
grasses. The new plants are better able to withstand trampling by soldiers
and grinding and crushing by vehicles. Military training installations are
some of the most intensively used lands in the United States.

Antonio J. Palazzo, who works at the U.S. Army's Cold Regions Research and
Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, N.H., recruited Asay and colleagues because
of their impressive track record. The Logan work has resulted in new plant
varieties that stabilize erosion-prone slopes, landscape roadsides and
provide forage for livestock and wildlife.

Several of the Logan varieties are among the best performers in tests at the
Yakima Training Center in central Washington, and Fort Carson, south of
Colorado Springs, Colo. The findings from these sites should be applicable
to many other military bases throughout the West.

At Yakima, Snake River wheatgrass has been the top-performing native grass.
Logan scientists are working to make it even more resilient. Meanwhile the
scientists are working at Fort Carson to improve native western wheatgrass.
Other work at Fort Carson is yielding a promising blend that combines the
Logan lab's RoadCrest crested wheatgrass and the lab's Bozoisky Russian
wildrye with the Army's mix of natives like slender wheatgrass, Indian
ricegrass, sideoats grama and lovegrass.

ARS is the chief research branch of USDA. The ARS Forage and Range Research
Laboratory is on the web at: http://www.usu.edu/~forage/frrl.htm

___________________________________________
This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS Information
distributes on weekdays to fax and e-mail subscribers. You can also get the
latest ARS news on the World Wide Web at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm.
* Feedback and questions to ARS News Service via e-mail: isjd@ars-grin.gov.
* ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD
20705-5128, (301) 504-1617, fax 504-1648.

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