It’s difficult to think deeply about weeds as the first flakes of snow fly around Missoula County. Winter has finally come to our region just in time for holiday travel. As the snow blankets our fields, pastures, and gardens, we take a break from the physical and mental toll of “making the property look nice”. However, I would argue that NOW is a perfect time to read, educate, and reconsider your plan for 2026. For your consideration in December, I’m offering the most common mistake that land stewards make when mixing plants and animals on their properties. That mistake is having no plan at all—no timing, no prioritizing, no dividing or labeling. Just last year’s jug of herbicide is waiting for next year’s use. This is precisely the mindset that pervades our neighborhoods. With no new education comes no change, and we are caught in the endless cycle of weed spraying.
Here is my MOST IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATION if you do not currently have a land management or grazing plan. Breath and let year one be a data-gathering year. Take stock of what you have! Here are three data gathering activities that you can check off your list in 2026.
STEP 1
First, collect a soil sample as soon as the ground unthaws and send it in for analysis! Understanding the strengths and limitations of your soil is a fabulous place to start gathering information. For less than $20 per sample, you can learn about the structure and composition of your land that may or may not hinder your land management goals. For example, a friend has a hay field that is not producing well. Her goal is to grow 3 tons per acre or more for horses. A soil test identified the severely low pH of the soil and informed her fertilizer recommendations. In another example, two soil analysis reports from different pastures informed a land owner that it was the difference in grazing pressures and not soil differences that limited pasture growth.
Another way to gather soil data about your property is to go the USDA/NRCS Web Soil Survey (https://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/). This is a publicly available database of soil types all across the United States. Enter your address into the system and be presented with an enormous amount of data about your soil type and its potential for growing and building things.
STEP 2
Name the good as well as the bad. All too often, we are called out to site visits to identify the unwanted plants. “What is this, and how do I eradicate it?” is the common ask. However, this hyper focus on the undesirables undermines your property’s potential to grow desirable things. In The Constant Battle Weed Diaries, we will be attempting to shift your perspective from “how do I kill the stuff I don’t want” to “how do I promote the stuff I want”. So, name those grass plants! Can you tell the difference between brome, timothy, orchard, and bluegrass? Do you have any native forbs that are desirable? Do you know the difference between noxious weeds and nuisance weeds? When I started this job a year ago, I knew none of those things. I had a grazing plan but I had not named ANYTHING that my horses were eating and only a fraction of the noxious weeds present. Today, due to naming things, I have created an improved land management plan for 2026 with better focus and timing.
How do you identify these plants, you might ask? Well, the Department of Ecology and Extension in Missoula County is FULL of very well-educated and experienced people that can do site visits! Just call our office at 406-258-4200 to find the best match for your land management goals. There are, of course, apps for plant ID as well. At Missoula County Department of Ecology and Extension we recommend the Montana Grasses app by Montana State University (https://www.montana.edu/news/12621/new-app-available-to-identify-montana-grasses). The Montana Field Guide website- a collaborative effort between the Montana Natural Heritage Program and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (https://fieldguide.mt.gov/) is also a great resource.
STEP 3
This leads us to my FINAL AND FAVORITE step- consider building a small exclosure. A lot of properties that I visit are so overgrazed that we don’t have enough plant material to identify anything. In order to make a confident identification, it’s nice to have the entire plant from roots to seed head. This is where exclosures come in. You completely block out a small space from grazing by livestock or wildlife so that all the plants present can grow up. You can start making reliable plant identifications in June or July. Just a small 3’x3’ exclosure can tell you a lot about the composition of your parcel. Building an exclosure inside the grazed pasture is recommended, but sometimes simply what’s on the other side of the fence can tell you a lot about your property’s potential as well. If you’re extra ambitious, you can take a full clipping of a square meter in late summer to measure and weigh your pasture’s tonnage potential.
Once you have taken a year to observe and educate, you can start making smart goals and decisions about your property. Decisions that negatively affect the weeds and decisions that positively affect the desirable plants. If you need help mapping or crunching numbers for smart goals on your property, contact the Missoula County Department of Ecology and Extension. In the next edition of “The Constant Battle Weed Diaries”, we’ll discuss three important zones to map our on your property and how to think about them.
If you are reading this blog to the end, you might also be interested in two big events happening at The Exploration Center in January 2026: The Western Montana Grazing and Agriculture Conference on January 29-30th and AgTALKS “Design your Track or Rotational Grazing System for Horses Workshop” on January 31st. Links to the event details and registration pages are below.
Western Montana Grazing and Agriculture Conference- https://missoulaeduplace.org/get-involved/our-calendar.html/event/2026/01/30/western-montana-grazing-agriculture-conference/547529
Design Your Track or Rotational Grazing System for Horses Workshop- https://missoulaeduplace.org/get-involved/our-calendar.html/event/2026/01/31/design-your-track-or-rotational-grazing-system-for-horses-workshop/547251
