Seventy Years of Pasture Rejuvenation Research

Abstract

pasture, 48 km north of the city of Swift Current, Saskatchewan. Later in the 1960s and 1970s, an international research center was established at the Matador pasture as part of a world-wide attempt to collect data on representative ecosystems and to develop computer models of them. Many of the world's present-day ecologists worked in the program as student help during data collection and analysis. The results were published in approximately 25 volumes, each the size of a big city phone book. A summary of the overall results can be found on www.foragebeef.ca. During the Dirty Thirties researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Swift Current and Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) began to reestablish drought-stricken pastures in the southern prairies with new varieties of Russian wild rye and crested wheat grass. The involvement of PFRA in pasture and range development started in 1935 along with soil reclamation, tree planting, and water development projects. By the end of 1937, 16 provincial community pastures involving 175,900 acres had been established in Saskatchewan. In addition, thirty more potential pasture areas had been surveyed for development encompassing about 400,000 acres, and 5 reserve areas were proposed to be taken out of annual cropping, reseeded to grass, and used for supplemental forage for wintering livestock. Eight pastures totaling 595,840 acres were established by the Alberta government during this time. Many additional community pastures were developed in Saskatchewan in the 1950s and 1960s. The land came from