Super Juniper Eating Goats
If Texans were to pick a plant that brings loathing and dread to city dwellers and ranchers alike, a range expert predicts the answer might well be juniper — or cedar, as it’s more commonly called.
“Allergy sufferers hate it, and ranchers dread its invasion of their pastures,” said Dr. Charles “Butch” Taylor, superintendent of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Station at Sonora. “The two predominant species in Texas, redberry and blueberry juniper, even surpass mesquite as a rangeland nemesis since their range is much wider.”
But AgriLife researchers feel they now have a proven biological control to cost-effectively help take a bite out of the problem of cedar encroachment, Taylor said.
As part of a Super Juniper Eating Goat Project, he and a host of other AgriLife Research staff have been working for years to develop goats that willingly consume and thrive on cedar as a major part of their normal diet. To do so, the animals must be genetically able to tolerate and digest the foul-tasting, stomach-upsetting chemicals called terpenes that junipers produce to ward off grazers.
“The use of goats for biological control of woody plants, including cedar, is nothing new. But knowing which goats eat the most cedar for use as Super Juniper Eating Goat seedstock has been a nightmare,” Taylor said. “That’s because standard methods are worthless for screening large numbers of animals.”
Continue reading on AgriLife Today.
This article by Steve Byrns originally appeared inTexas A&M AgriLife Today.
