Bassia

Winter feeding costs have often been cited as one of the most expensive aspects of beef cattle production in the Intermountain West. Research and rancher experience suggests that using forage kochia for fall/winter grazing may help reduce these costs.

Forage or prostrate kochia (Kochia prostrata) is native to the heavily grazed rangeland egions of Central Eurasia. It is a long lived, semi-evergreen half-shrub that averages 1 to 3 feet high.  It is drought, saline, and alkaline tolerant, and grows on a wide range of soils in areas receiving 5 to 20 inches of yearly precipitation. It is well adapted to marginal rangelands, out-competing cheatgrass and halogeton and stabilizing disturbed soils. Forage kochia is different than the weed annual kochia (Kochia scoparia) in that forage kochia is a perennial semi-shrub, will not spread into perennial plant stands, and does not have nitrate or oxalate toxicity.