Nevada gets $500,000 for rangeland health study

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- University of Nevada, Reno researchers have been awarded about $500,000 in federal funds to continue a study designed to improve the health of Nevada's rangelands.

UNR's Nevada Agricultural Experiment Station received the funds for a 3-year-old research program known as the Nevada Arid Rangeland Initiative.

Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign and Rep. Jim Gibbons helped secure the funding to carry on research on grazing, wildfires, weed control and natural resource issues.

Reid said the funding is vital for Nevada's ecosystems.

"This funding will help protect Nevada's fragile and beautiful environment," he said. "It will help our top scientists find ways to keep invasive weeds from destroying native plants and will help us test low water use crops and new grazing techniques -- so our farmers and ranchers can protect the land and improve their businesses."

Gibbons agreed, saying the funding would help researchers better understand arid rangelands and how best to protect them.

"The research ... will benefit all Nevadans -- especially our ranchers, farmers and rural communities," Gibbons said.

David Thawley, the agricultural station's director, said rangeland issues are among the most critical to the state's future.

The initiative aims to create productive rangelands through a variety of high-level research programs, making it "one of the most comprehensive programs" in the station's history, Thawley said.

"This has been an effort by our college as well as the university as a whole to be responsive to meeting some of the most important needs of natural resource management in Nevada," Thawley said. "Continued funding places this institution at the forefront of research and education of the arid rangeland issue."

Nearly $1.2 million has been awarded to the initiative since 1999.