JEROME, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has been conducting aerial herbicide spraying since 2018 to push back against invasive cheatgrass.
Cheatgrass is spreading across Idaho landscapes, fueling fast-moving brush fires like the Median Fire near Wendell in June and crowding out the native plants that wildlife and livestock depend on.
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Miranda Reinson, a regional field biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, explained why cheatgrass is such a persistent problem.
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Cheatgrass is not native to Idaho and offers little nutritional value, causing both livestock and game animals to avoid it. That leaves it standing dry on the ground — ready to burn.
"It's non-native to Idaho, and it out-competes a lot of your native plants that you want to see on the landscape because that is your food for your wildlife, your livestock. It's the natural way that the land works," Reinson said.
Once the grass dries out and completes its lifecycle, it becomes a near-ideal fire carrier.
"It carries fire very rapidly when it dries out," Reinson said. "Cheatgrass has already completed its lifecycle for that seed, and now it's just sitting on the ground right for fire to come through."
To limit cheatgrass expansion, Fish and Game has worked with land managers including the U.S. Forest Service and the state of Idaho to identify areas where aerial spraying can eradicate the weed. Fish and Game's Magic Valley Field Office has conducted aerial spraying since 2018.
Recent treatment areas include the South Hills, Soldier Mountains and the Smoky Mountains. A helicopter is used to navigate in and out of gullies during the fall spraying operations.
The herbicide Rejuvra targets annual plants and grasses while allowing native perennial plants to flourish. In a valley north of Shoshone, Reinson showed me an area treated the previous fall.
"So we're standing in the area we actually treated last fall with Rejuva, and all the species that we're seeing right now that I'm looking at are native," Reinson said.
The results were visible across the treated ground, with a variety of native species returning to the landscape.
"You've got some wild basin rye in here, the lupine, arrowroot, balsam root, buckwheat, phlox. Those are all really good species," Reinson said.
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