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<br />LOAAII' SLOPES RANGE SITE <br />Tliis range site occupies only a small acreage in Adams County, <br />It adjoins the Loamy Plains range site where the soils slope sharply <br />away from the uplands into draws and bottoms. The sails are loamy <br />in texture and strongly sloping. They are subject to excessive run- <br />off and erosion. Deep-rooting grasses arc best adapted to this range <br />site, If a good cover of them is maintained, more water is conserved <br />and less soils is lost than when the site has a sparse cover of short <br />grass. <br />Side-oats grams, little bluestem, ~oestern wheatgrass, and needle- <br />and-thread, and a few patches of prairie sand reed, are the important <br />grasses, and all are decreasers. Blue grams, an increaser, grocas in <br />bunches throughout the stand. Three-awn, sand dropseed, and thread- <br />leaf sedge are of monor importance. Snakeweed is the most common <br />shrubb~• plant, but it is not abundant unless range condition is poor. <br />When this site is in excellent condition, the total annual yield <br />of air-dry herbage ranges from as low as 400 pounds per acre in an un- <br />favorable year to as high as 1,200 pounds in a favorable year. About <br />80 percent of the total annual yield comes from plants that provide <br />forage for cattle, <br />