UC Rangelands – Supporting Working Landscapes

Worldwide, rangelands are our most expansive and diverse land resources and provide a multitude of ecosystem goods and services to humanity. Ranchers and land managers hold unique expertise on the factors determining success of goal setting, decision-making, and adaptive management strategies within these complex social-ecological systems.

Much of California’s surface drinking water and irrigation supplies are either derived from rangeland runoff, or are stored in reservoirs situated within the State’s 40 million acres of rangeland watershed.

Rangeland livestock producers were among the first agricultural communities affected by California's worst drought in 500 years. Through surveys and interviews, we have worked with the ranching community to identify key strategies for coping with and adapting to drought.

Using a stakeholder driven approach to developing actionable research to rangeland weed and pest management decision making. We held a series of workshops across California to share information on recent developments in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) rangeland research and survey participants to learn about local experiences and perceptions of rangeland weed control practices.

This guide is for extension professionals, watershed organization staff or volunteers, and the livestock ranching community. The goal is to provide an objective, adaptive framework and blueprint for organizing short course–type education programs that enable ranchers to complete RWQPs.

Enhancing irrigated grasslands and watersheds through understanding sustainable irrigated pasture management strategies critical to farming and ranching economic viability, environmental quality, and supply of ecosystem goods and services.

Predators and grazing livestock rely upon rangeland habitats throughout California (and much of the world), and so livestock-predator conflicts are perhaps inevitable. The Livestock-Predator Information Hub provides research-based information for rangeland livestock producers and wildlife managers on mitigating and managing potential conflicts.

Nearly half of the grazing land in California is held in the public trust. We work with a variety of natural resource agencies to study and promote both environmental sustainability and agricultural production on the diverse ecosystems that comprise California's public rangelands.

This application is a nitrogen and irrigation management planning tool for irrigated pastures and an educational tool for assisting California growers in completing a Irrigation and Nitrogen Management Plan.

The American sheep industry has seen a steady decline in national sheep numbers dropping from a record 56 million sheep in 1942 to 5.23 million in 2017. A dramatic increase in production efficiency is critical to the future success and sustainability of the sheep industry. Technologies like electronic identification (EID) tags and genomic testing have been profitably adopted by other livestock industries. 

The UC Rangelands Research & Education Archive provides access to rangeland and pasture information, including more than 700 archived publications and reports.