Texas A&M's Center for Grazinglands and Ranch Management has received $1 million from the National Grazing Lands Coalition for two projects aimed at ranchers and landowners, Texas A&M AgriLife announced Thursday. One project targets the invasive pasture mealybug; the other expands the center's online training for grazing managers.
The announcement did not say how the money is divided between the two efforts.
Spotting the mealybug earlier
The first project, a two-year effort, will be run by the AgriLife Research Ranch Diagnostics Laboratory, which is part of the center. Its goals are to help producers detect the pest sooner and to guide decisions on tools such as targeted grazing, prescribed burning and integrated pest management.
Planned work includes surveys of producers across Texas about what help they need, baseline health appraisals of grazing land, and demonstration sites. AgriLife did not say how many sites there will be or where.
Jeff Goodwin, the center's director, said early detection is difficult because pasture mealybug damage looks much like drought stress, according to the AgriLife announcement, so infestations can be missed until losses are serious. AgriLife has described the insect as affecting millions of acres of Texas pasture and native rangeland.
The team includes Goodwin; Jenna Likins, a center program manager in Bryan-College Station; David Kerns, the statewide integrated pest management coordinator in the Department of Entomology; and Stacy Hines, an AgriLife Extension rangeland habitat specialist based in Corpus Christi.
