The purpose of this project is to improve our methods for shrub restoration work. We have made a lot of progress over the last five years in developing shrub seedlings that have better survival, but there is still a lot to improve. The main thing this study wants to determine is whether there is a smaller seedling size that we can use and still get good survival. A smaller plant that is grown over a shorter period of time will dramatically reduce the cost. Right now we are growing seedlings in D40 pots that are about 10" in length. This is a large plant that requires a lot of labor to plant and time to grow. We are having good survival with this plant size but it is expensive, around $4.50 per plant. To be able to restore large areas of land we need to plant a lot more plants and to be able to do that we need to reduce the cost. This study will tell us how small of plant we can grow and still get acceptable survival rates. This study will change shrub restoration forever and is critical in restoring the health of our watersheds.

1. Identify the best size pot to grow seedlings that will be the cheapest and have the best survival rates. 2. Fine-tune our timing and methods in seedling planting. 3. Produce and publish a peer-reviewed and statistically sound paper that can be utilized by land managers across the west to improve their shrub restoration techniques.

By doing this project we will help prevent the loss of wildlife populations that are dependent upon shrub species for their survival. If we do not do this project we are at risk of losing entire ecosystems that would be extremely difficult to restore in the future.

Utah Statewide Mule Deer Management Plan Habitat Objective 2: Improve the quality and quantity of vegetation for mule deer on a minimum of 500,000 acres of crucial range by 2019. b. Work with land management agencies, conservation organizations, private landowners, and local leaders through the regional Watershed Restoration Initiative working groups to identify and prioritize mule deer habitats that are in need of enhancement or restoration (Figure 6). d. Initiate broad scale vegetative treatment projects to improve mule deer habitat with emphasis on drought or fire damaged sagebrush winter ranges Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Strategic Plan. Goal A: Conserve, protect, enhance and manage Utah's wildlife. Obj. A-1:Maintain populations of harvestable wildlife species at species or drainage management plan objective levels through 2003. Obj. A-2:Increase the distribution and/or abundance of 10% of the 1998 classified state sensitive species by 2003. Obj. A-4: Maintain distribution and abundance of all other naturally occurring wildlife and native plant species through 2003. Goal B: Conserve, protect, enhance and manage Utah's ecosystems. Obj. B-1: Increase the functioning of 10% of the currently impaired ecosystems. Obj. B-2: Prevent declining conditions in both impaired and currently functional ecosystems The Habitat Management Plan for this unit states: Goal III, objective 1 "Maintain key forage species on winter range" This project will help meet some of the Habitat management strategies listed * Improve sagebrush and bitterbrush habitats with seed and/or seedling transplant projects. * Utilize mechanical treatments to enhance sagebrush seedling establishment in over mature sagebrush stands. Wildlife Action Plan 1. The project area occurs within the sagebrush steppe type which is one of the key habitats identified in the WAP. This area supports mule deer (S4), elk (SNA) and numerous other species of concern also inhabit the area including neotropical birds and raptors. WRI Focus Areas The proposed treatments lie within Central Region UPCD focus areas. Santaquin City Community Wildfire Protection Plan: 1) Community will work with county, state and federal fire officials to decrease fuels on adjacent public lands to reduce wildfire intensity, and impact in and around the community. 2)Fuels reduction project east of Exit 242 near shooting areas on DNR land. 2003 Forest Plan Uinta NF: 1) Sub-goal-2-1(G-2-1) The fuel management aspect of the fire management program is emphasized through application of hazard reduction activities. 2)Sub-goal-2-8 (G-2-8) Ecosystem resilience is maintained by providing for a full range of seral stages and age classes (by cover type) that achieve a mosaic of habitat conditions and diversity to meet a variety of desired resource management objectives. Recruitment and sustainability of some early seral species and vegetation communities in the landscape are necessary to maintain ecosystem resilience to perturbations. 3)Sub-goal-2-25 (G-2-25) Maintain stable and upward conditions in big game winter range habitats and improve downward trend sites. 4)Objective-2-17 (O-2-17) By 2018, complete 1,000 acres of big game winter range habitat improvements to reach desired future conditions. Statewide Turkey Managment Pan III. ISSUES AND CONCERNS High Priority: Urgent and Important Issue H2. Insufficient Winter Habitat Concern A. Starvation during severe weather. Concern B. Winter overutilization of urban and agricultural areas Objective 1.Stabilize populations that are declining outside of natural population fluctuations; especially through catastrophic events (i.e. following fires, severe winters, etc.). Strategy c: Conduct habitat projects to address limiting factors. Objective 2.Increase wild turkey habitat, quality and quantity, by 40,000 acres statewide by 2020.Strategy d:Conduct habitat improvement projects in limiting habitat(s). Objective 1.Decrease the number of chronic material damage complaints per turkeys by 25% by 2020. Strategy Improve habitat to draw wild turkey populations away from conflict.

By having younger shrubs and forbs that are not as decadent and dry as older dying shrubs it will reduce the risk and severity of fire. Hopefully it will serve as green strip areas where fires will slow or stop. By maintaining healthy stand of shrubs and native plants it will prevent annual grasses from establishing that can increase the fuel load and dryness of plants that increase fire risk. We will be planting forbs that will serve as strips of greener vegetation that will also help reduce fire spread.

By having a healthy diversity of age class shrubs it will prevent a mono-culture of old decadent plants which can die off and result in invasion of weedy plants such as cheatgrass. Cheatgrass will absorb all of the available water and decrease the plant diversity. By doing this project there will be more available water for native understory plants to increase diversity. This will also help prevent cheatgrass from establishing and creating an unnatural fire regime that will result in greater increases in erosion and sedimentation that will reduce water quality.

All necessary cultural clearances have been conducted previously for other projects. This project is located on the Dairy Fork WMA (state land) and does not require NEPA.

We will be planting 7 different sized sagebrush seedling pots. Two different age classes (7 months and 4 months old). We will be planting in November and in March. We are utilizing mechanical and hand methods of planting to see if it matters.

Scott Jensen with the USDA shrub lab is going to be doing intensive monitoring of the survival of these plantings. We will mark each plant with a flag and GPS so that we can return and keep track of what survives and for how long.

The UDWR is partnering with the USDA on this study.

These properties are wildlife management areas that are protected for the benefit of wildlife. They will not be developed and the benefits we are trying to accomplish for the ecosystem will be preserved. We will continue to do future plantings as needed until we have achieved the desired range conditions.

This will help to improve the diversity and quantity of browse species on these WMAs. The WMAs are all actively grazed. This project will help to establish native grasses and forbs as these shrub communites establish. This will help increase the available forage as less palatable annual grasses are displaced. This project will also increase the value of these properties for hunting big game and upland game birds.

10/19/2023

05/30/2024

2024

This project is still ongoing, but we will provide some updates. We have purchased and planted multiple seedlings sizes and ages and planted them at four different sites to monitor survival. We began with sagebrush and planted some in the fall of 2022 and the spring and fall of 2023. We also began looking at bitterbrush and forb species survival in the spring of 2024 and will do a final planting in the fall of 2024. We have planted at the Dairy Fork, Wallsburg, and Santaquin WMAs as well as a site on the west side of the Stansbury Mountains. We purchased soil moisture data loggers that give us data about the climatic variables to correlate with shrub survival. We have hired Scott Jensen with Ecopoint to help us with data collection, analysis, and write up. We hope to have final results from all of our research by spring of 2025.

The purpose of this project was to improve our methods for shrub restoration work. We have made a lot of progress over the last five years in developing shrub seedlings that have better survival, but there was still a lot to improve. The main thing this study wanted to determine is whether there is a smaller seedling size that we can use and still get good survival. A smaller plant that is grown over a shorter period of time will dramatically reduce the cost. When we began the study we were growing seedlings in D40 pots that are about 10" in length. This is a large plant that requires a lot of labor to plant and time to grow. We had good survival with this plant size but it is expensive, around $4.50 per plant. To be able to restore large areas of land we need to plant a lot more plants and to be able to do that we need to reduce the cost. This study helped us know how small of a plant we can grow and still get acceptable survival rates. This study helped to change shrub restoration forever and is critical in restoring the health of our watersheds.

These properties are wildlife management areas that are protected for the benefit of wildlife. They will not be developed and the benefits we are trying to accomplish for the ecosystem will be preserved. We will continue to monitor survival and fine tune our planting methods to maximize our seedling survival and our restoration efforts.