Buffelgrass: The Scourge Of The Sonoran Desert Is Here To Stay arizonadailyindependent.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from arizonadailyindependent.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Buffelgrass is here to stay, but experts and volunteers alike said they are getting a better handle on managing it in the Sonoran Desert. This highly invasive weed fills in the natural gaps between native desert plants like saguaros, threatening their survival and increasing the risk of wildfire damage.
Invasive grass is overwhelming U.S. deserts providing fuel for wildfires
Volunteers are yanking the dangerous grasses from public lands across the American Southwest.
ByShaena Montanari
Email
In recent years, large swathes of the desert landscape in the parks around Tucson, Arizona have started to look a lot like grassland. And that’s a problem.
Buffelgrass, a perennial arid climate-adapted grass from Africa, was brought to the United States in the 1930s and planted throughout Arizona, Texas, and Mexico to control soil erosion and provide cattle forage. In the 1980s, it started to take over the Sonoran Desert including state and national parks causing a multitude of ecological issues and fueling wildfires.