- Author: Rebecca Ozeran
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Some plants thrive even in dry years, while others need wet years to really blossom. It's no surprise, then, that this year the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Fresno office has received several inquiries about potentially toxic plants and how to deal with them. Even if these species have always been present in the seed bank or on neighboring land, this year was a good year for toxic plants to grow large where previously they grew very small – or didn't grow at all.
Common plants that can cause livestock poisoning include annuals such as cockleburs, hairy fleabane, and yellow starthistle, and perennials like curly dock, larkspurs, and milkweeds. Annuals especially tend to respond vigorously to...
- Author: Rachael Freeman Long
- Author: Morgan P. Doran
- Author: Robert Poppenga
- Author: Daniel H. Putnam
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From the Alfalfa & Forage News blog (April 29, 2022)
Vetch (Vicia spp.) is growing like a weed everywhere this year, carpeting our hills with great swaths of purple flowers.
What is vetch? There are several species that are commonly grown as crops, cover crops or weeds (see list at the bottom). Vetch is a winter-hardy legume that's favored by early fall rains, which we had lots of last October (5.5-in in 24-hr in Sacramento). Vetch is also a nitrogen-fixing...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
- Re-posted by: Gale Perez
From the UC Green Blog :: June 5, 2014 :: by Jeannette Warnert
One of the worst rangeland weeds in the West is aptly named after a monster in Greek mythology that has writhing snakes instead of hair.
Medusahead, an unwelcome transplant from Europe, is anathema to the cattle living off rangeland grass. The weed's three-inch-long bristles poke and sometimes injure the animals' mouths and eyes. The weed is also low-quality forage for livestock. When medusahead takes over rangeland, it reduces the forage value by 80...
