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Blue Dot 218: Rangeland Management In Drought And Sheep To The Rescue: A Conversation With UC Davis Scientists

California's rangelands are undergoing critical stress in a historic drought. How are ranchers coping with the lack of water and forage for their animals? Dave talks to Leslie Roche, the Director of the UC Rangelands program about how scientific principles combined with knowledge gained by California ranchers over decades are being used to combat the complex and seemingly intractable problem.

Then Dave visits with Haven Kiers, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design about a unique experiment she and her team are conducting using sheep to mow, mulch, and fertilize the UC Davis campus's extensive lawn and field areas.

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.