External links
- GlobalSecurity.org page on Camp Grafton
- "Camp Grafton". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 2014-01-01.
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Camp Grafton is the main Army National Guard installation in North Dakota. The base, located near Devils Lake, North Dakota, was founded in 1904 as the Rock Island Military Reservation. In 1924, it was renamed after Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert C. Grafton, a prominent North Dakota National Guardsman who had served in the militia since the days of Dakota Territory, and died of disease in 1919. The name change was made official by executive order of the governor of North Dakota in 1952.
Camp Grafton of the North Dakota Army National Guard in Devils Lake, North Dakota is an ARNG Major Training Center. In 1904 some 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) near Devils Lake was ceded to the State of North Dakota by the federal government for use as a permanent military reservation for the North Dakota National Guard. Before its present name, the camp was also known as Camp Henry W. Lawton and the Rock Island Military Reservation.
Devils Lake, the largest natural body of water in North Dakota, has been getting larger every year since 1993, much to the frustration of area residents. Rising water threatens to flood the city of Devils Lake, Camp Grafton, roads, fields, sewage treatment plants, and other human facilities. Devils Lake has a long history of fluctuating water levels. Water levels have risen over 16 feet (4.9 m), flooding pasture, farmland, homes, businesses, and roads. The fluctuating water level of Devils Lake has been a concern to area residents for a number of years. In 1983, then Governor Olson issued a Disaster Emergency Proclamation for the area due to the damage to roads and property caused by flooding (Bluemle, 1983). A drought that began in 1988 caused the lake level to decline again.
In 1983 the North Dakota National Guard received funding from the state legislature to purchase land in Eddy County. Today the "new" training area is known as Camp Grafton South. In 1997 the training facility located at Camp Grafton (South) was designated as the Major General C. Emerson Murry regional live fire and maneuver training center, though it remained a part of the overall Camp Grafton training complex. Major General C. Emerson Murry served in the North Dakota National Guard from 1955 to 1984, being adjutant general of the North Dakota National Guard from 1975 to 1984.
Camp Grafton (South Unit) (CGS) consists of 10,000 acres (40 km2) of a transitional grassland ecosystem. Transitional grasslands contain both tall grass prairies of the east and mixed grass prairies of the west. CGS is one of the largest contiguous areas of transitional grasslands North Dakota. Grazing has been the predominant use of the training area since 1920. Cattle grazing mimics the prehistoric grazing by herbivores (elk and bison). The rolling hills of transitional grasslands are a tremendous training area for open-area combat arms maneuvers necessary for our mechanized engineer and air defense artillery units. To maintain the transitional grassland ecosystem, grazing licenses are auctioned to local ranchers; providing income, which is, reinvested back into the training site. The transitional grassland ecosystem is seriously threatened by leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula), an introduced weed. The primary control in the past has been concentrated use of 2,4-D and picloram herbicides. In the past five years, the North Dakota Army National Guard, in partnership with the Range Science Department of North Dakota State University has implemented an integrated pest management plan to control leafy spurge using cultural and chemical controls. The cultural controls consist of grazing spurge tolerant sheep on heavily infested sites, and treating small concentrations through chemical application. The NDARNG is expected to reduce herbicide costs by 79% over the next six years, with a realization of increased grass production of 50%. The USDA in other trials throughout the United States is implementing this integrated plan of combined cultural and chemical treatment.
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Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east.
A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica and are found in most ecoregions of the Earth. Furthermore, grasslands are one of the largest biomes on Earth and dominate the landscape worldwide. There are different types of grasslands: natural grasslands, semi-natural grasslands, and agricultural grasslands. They cover 31–69% of the Earth's land area.
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses. According to Britannica, there exists four savanna forms; savanna woodland where trees and shrubs form a light canopy, tree savanna with scattered trees and shrubs, shrub savanna with distributed shrubs, and grass savanna where trees and shrubs are mostly nonexistent.
Weed control is a type of pest control, which attempts to stop or reduce growth of weeds, especially noxious weeds, with the aim of reducing their competition with desired flora and fauna including domesticated plants and livestock, and in natural settings preventing non native species competing with native species.
Phragmites is a genus of four species of large perennial reed grasses found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world.
Devils Lake is a lake in the U.S. state of North Dakota. It is the largest natural body of water and the second-largest body of water in North Dakota after Lake Sakakawea. It can reach a level of 1,458 ft (444 m) before naturally flowing into the Sheyenne River via the Tolna Coulee. On June 27, 2011, it reached an unofficial historical high elevation of 1,454.3 ft (443.3 m). The cities of Devils Lake and Minnewaukan take their name from the lake as does the Spirit Lake Reservation, which is located on the lake's southern shores.
The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Historically, natural and anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroachment of trees, recycling soil nutrients, and facilitating seed dispersal and germination. Prior to widespread use of the steel plow, which enabled large scale conversion to agricultural land use, tallgrass prairies extended throughout the American Midwest and smaller portions of southern central Canada, from the transitional ecotones out of eastern North American forests, west to a climatic threshold based on precipitation and soils, to the southern reaches of the Flint Hills in Oklahoma, to a transition into forest in Manitoba.
Grand River National Grassland is a National Grassland in northwestern South Dakota, United States. It is named for the Grand River. The North and South forks of the rivers meet in the grassland. It has a land area of 154,783 acres (62,638 ha). In descending order of acreage it lies in parts of Perkins, Corson, and Ziebach counties. The portion in Corson County also lies within the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The portion in Ziebach County also lies within the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.
The black-tailed prairie dog is a rodent of the family Sciuridae found in the Great Plains of North America from about the United States–Canada border to the United States–Mexico border. Unlike some other prairie dogs, these animals do not truly hibernate. The black-tailed prairie dog can be seen above ground in midwinter. A black-tailed prairie dog town in Texas was reported to cover 25,000 sq mi (64,000 km2) and included 400,000,000 individuals. Prior to habitat destruction, the species may have been the most abundant prairie dog in central North America. It was one of two prairie dogs described by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the journals and diaries of their expedition.
Aegilops triuncialis, or barbed goatgrass, is a grass species of the family Poaceae. It is a winter annual native to many areas in Eastern and Mediterranean Europe and Western Asia. It is considered an introduced, invasive species in North America, mainly in the Western coast of the United States. In its native lands, the grass thrives in mainly rocky, serpentine soil, but also does well in grasslands and ruderal/disturbed ground as well as oak woodlands.
The puna grassland ecoregion, of the montane grasslands and shrublands biome, is found in the central Andes Mountains of South America. It is considered one of the eight Natural Regions in Peru, but extends south, across Chile, Bolivia, and western northwest Argentina. The term puna encompasses diverse ecosystems of the high Central Andes above 3200–3400 m.
Conservation grazing or targeted grazing is the use of semi-feral or domesticated grazing livestock to maintain and increase the biodiversity of natural or semi-natural grasslands, heathlands, wood pasture, wetlands and many other habitats. Conservation grazing is generally less intensive than practices such as prescribed burning, but still needs to be managed to ensure that overgrazing does not occur. The practice has proven to be beneficial in moderation in restoring and maintaining grassland and heathland ecosystems. The optimal level of grazing will depend on the goal of conservation, and different levels of grazing, alongside other conservation practices, can be used to induce the desired results.
Lake Galilee is a semi-arid salt lake in the locality of Galilee, Barcaldine Region, within the Desert Uplands area of Central West Queensland, Australia. The lake is about 36 kilometres long, up to 12.5 kilometres wide and covers approximately 25,700 hectares.
Scottsdale Reserve is a 1,328-hectare (3,280-acre) nature reserve on the Murrumbidgee River in south-central New South Wales, Australia. It is 79 kilometres (49 mi) south of Canberra, and 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) north of Bredbo. It is owned and managed by Bush Heritage Australia (BHA), which purchased it in 2006. The purchase was supportive of projects aiming to connect existing fragmented remnant habitat such as K2C. Since the 1870s up until 2006, the land was used for agriculture – primarily sheep grazing with some minor cropping. A significant component of the Reserve has been cleared of native vegetation.
The Black Kettle National Grassland, in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma, and Hemphill County, Texas, contains 31,286 acres (12,661 ha) of which 30,710 acres (12,430 ha) are in Oklahoma.
Artemisia filifolia, known by common names including sand sagebrush, sand sage and sandhill sage, is a species of flowering plant in the aster family. It is native to North America, where it occurs from Nevada east to South Dakota and from there south to Arizona, Chihuahua, and Texas.
The ecology of the Great Plains is diverse, largely owing to their great size. Differences in rainfall, elevation, and latitude create a variety of habitats including short grass, mixed grass, and tall-grass prairies, and riparian ecosystems.
Euphorbia virgata, commonly known as leafy spurge, wolf's milk leafy spurge, or wolf's milk is a species of spurge native to Europe and Asia, and introduced in North America, where it is an invasive species.
White Lake Grasslands Protected Area is a conservation site located in the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen of British Columbia, Canada. It was established on April 18, 2001 by an order-in-council under the Environment and Land Use Act to protect the semi-arid grassland and pine forest ecosystem west of Vaseux Lake.
Annual grasslands are a type of grassland ecosystem characterized by the dominance of annual grasses and forbs. They are most commonly found in regions with Mediterranean climates, such as California, and provide important habitats for a variety of wildlife species.
