In this episode, I interview Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project to talk about cheatgrass, an annual invasive grass taking over large areas of the America West. Cheatgrass is an invasive Eurasian annual that arrived in contaminated crop seed and spread through the West via rail corridors and especially through cattle and sheep, whose fur carries its spiny seeds. Erik argues cheatgrass establishes where perennial bunchgrasses have been knocked back by disturbance—particularly chronic livestock grazing—rejecting claims that it is primarily a fire-driven phenomenon, citing fires in ungrazed areas that recovered with native bunchgrasses rather than cheatgrass. Erik describes how cheatgrass grows briefly in spring, then dies into highly flammable fine fuel that enables large rangeland fires, kills sagebrush, and can lock landscapes into cheatgrass monocultures with fire-return intervals now around 30–40 years in invaded areas. He outlines identification tips, notes other invasive annual grasses, disputes blaming wild horses as the main vector, critiques herbicide-and-reseed approaches, and emphasizes long-term rest from grazing to allow native seed banks and bunchgrasses to recover and resist reinvasion.
Cheatgrass Monograph
www.westernwatersheds.org
04:40 About Western Watersheds Project
07:40 Overgrazing Impacts
11:22 Grazing Economics Reality
18:50 Pivot to Cheatgrass
19:13 Cheatgrass Origins Spread
21:47 Grazing Link Denial
28:23 Fire Fuel Feedback
30:01 Identify Cheatgrass
31:50 Other Invasive Grasses
35:23 Invasives Ecology Ethics
43:14 New Fire Intervals
48:25 Recovery Without Cows
54:56 Cheatgrass and Ranching
58:12 Wild Horses Scapegoat
01:00:54 Herbicides Reseeding Limits
01:04:40 Manager Playbook
01:10:44 Buyouts and Restoration
Get full access to Our Public Lands Podcast at ourpubliclandspodcast.substack.com/subscribe
