Laserfiche WebLink
be clipped within each quadrat. The sampled plant material will be bagged and taken to the <br />laboratory for drying and weighing. Samples will be oven -dried at 105 degrees C to a constant <br />weight. <br />Sampling points for cover and herbaceous production will be located by using a random number <br />generating procedure to create up to 50 random coordinate pairs within each study area <br />(reclaimed sites and the reference area). A geographic positioning system (GPS) unit will be <br />used to navigate to the sample points, in the order that the points were randomly generated. A <br />stake or quadrat frame will be thrown over the shoulder to determine the exact sample location. <br />Cover transects will be oriented along a random compass bearing from the point of origin. If <br />production sampling is done at the same time as cover sampling, quadrats will be placed at the <br />transect origin on the left side of the transect. Cover will be calculated as percent total cover for <br />each transect, and the mean calculated for the study area. Production will be calculated by <br />dividing dry weight by the quadrat frame area in acres, and the mean dry weight pr acre <br />calculated. <br />For a quality standard on Dryland Pasture, the following is proposed <br />At least 75% of the relative production will consist of seeded species or species of comparable <br />quality as livestock forage. County listed noxious weed species will not be counted towards the <br />success standard for cover or production in any reclaimed area. For the purposes of this <br />demonstration, a statistically adequate production sample will be taken, or a minimum of 30 <br />observations. <br />The allowable relative cover and production contribution of annual and biennial species should <br />not exceed 10 %, or the relative cover and production of such species in the associated reference <br />area or standard, whichever is higher. Annual or biennial cover or production in excess of this <br />threshold should be deleted from the reclaimed area data prior to success comparison. An <br />acceptable alternative is to delete all annual /biennial cover and production from the reference <br />area prior to success comparison. <br />(Revised: PR -06) 2.05.4(2)(e) - 60 <br />