USGS · 70283223
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Matthew Germino. 2026-02-19. Browsing the literature. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2026.01.001
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On the Ground Soil pitting is an ancient technique for concentrating soil moisture to enable plant establishment and promote plant growth. It is especially effective in arid areas where plant establishment is limited by water availability. Pits created by digging and mounding action have been shown to be effective. Small pits made by soil compression are not very durable. Larger pits last longer and store more moisture. In mesic areas or years with above-average soil moisture, pitting may not be needed for plant establishment, and better results may be obtained by drill seeding. Pitting can help control some non-native annual plants by hindering their seed dispersal and concentrating their seeds within pits. This increases intraspecific competition and limits seed production. The pitting technique has been demonstrated in several studies as an effective control tactic for cheatgrass. Pitting is a strategy that may become more important as climates become hotter and more variable, as it allows soils to stay wetter for longer periods of time. Many custom-built machines have been developed to create soil pits efficiently. Commercially available machines are less common. Currently, pitters that dig and mound soil and are suitable for rangelands are not commercially available in North America.
For this edition of Browsing the Literature, we have two new papers from Rangeland Ecology & Management, a series of basic ecology papers with an international scope from journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Science, and Nature, and several papers advancing our understanding of drought and carbon at global scales. Additionally, several papers on sagebrush-steppe rangelands are covered with transferable insights to other rangeland types.