Title:  Developing Skills for Forage Identification

Project manager:  Leticia Henderson, Baker & Union Counties

Collaborating team members:

  • Scott Duggan, Central Oregon
  • Ian McGregor, Klamath County
  • Mylen Bohle, Central Oregon
  • Serkan Ates, Corvallis
  • Gordon Jones, Jackson & Josephine Counties
  • Darrin Walenta, Union County
  • David Hannaway, Corvallis

 Summary

Many producers and landowners call county extension offices seeking help to identify forages growing during the spring in the early vegetative stage. Even with adequate forage identification resources, some basic knowledge and principles about plant identification are necessary to effectively and correctly use plant identification tools. The Forage ID PACE Course will focus on teaching these basic principles. The learning outcome of this course is that participants will be able to use forage identification resources (e.g. forage ID handbook) to identify forage species. The selected forages used to teach these principles will be species from representative groups (e.g. annuals and perennials, cool-season and warm-season, grasses, legumes, and other forbs). Thus, species will include species important to Oregon but also species that are important in other parts of the US and the world. This will enable learners to identify a wide range of species.

As the course develops, we will consider if a module on forage species selection is feasible to include in this course. There is also a need to better coordinate with other forge related PACE courses, such as the Pasture Management course (lead Melissa Ferry) and the GIS PACE course (lead Sergio Arispe, section lead Christy Tanner).