Researchers hope the project will provide a case study demonstrating that much of the permanent interior fencing could be removed from federal grazing allotments and be effectively replaced with virtual fencing.

The first season of the planned two-year study started in mid-April and will conclude in October. The Foundation for America’s Public Lands funded the project with a $235,000 grant.

Furthermore, the ability to track livestock movements via the collars will provide the team with insights into other research questions. The researchers want to use data from their collared cattle to better understand important animal traits and to assess different management approaches.

“We’ve seen that where cattle spend the most time is not where they’re doing most of their grazing,” Ellison said. “We’re starting to learn little things like that by evaluating the data we’ve collected so far.”

The research team also includes K. Scott Jensen, an area Extension educator specializing in rangeland management and livestock grazing; Hadley Dotts, a research associate; and three graduate students — Henning Krúger and Maxine Walas, master’s students in animal science, and Abigail McClaflin, who is pursuing a master’s in water resources.

Ellison began research using virtual fencing in 2023, when she started a project on federal grazing allotments through which a wildfire had burned the previous grazing season, and in subsequent years, combined targeted grazing with collared cattle and aerial herbicide spraying to control cheatgrass. The team also used the collars to keep cattle away from critical fish habitat during the spawning season.

Ellison is also the lead on a separate, $181,000 grant from the Foundation for America’s Public Lands also involving virtual fencing. The project, scheduled to begin in March 2027, will entail grazing collared cattle in strips along roadways to establish wildfire fuel breaks.

Jonathan Clavijo-Herrera was among the first scientists in Florida to successfully establish a high-density peach orchard, using trellises to train tree branches to grow on fruiting walls, which reduces labor while increasing yields.

Now Clavijo is poised to help University of Idaho blaze trails with its fruit-production research.

On March 2, 2026, Clavijo joined the U of I’s Parma Research and Extension Center as an assistant professor and Extension specialist in pomology. In his new role, Clavijo will conduct research benefiting Idaho’s fruit industry, with an emphasis on apples, cherries and peaches.

Clavijo was attracted to the job by the potential of the fruit industry in Idaho, the opportunity to research new types of fruit, the high quality of the laboratory facilities at Parma and the ample orchard space.

“I feel there’s a lot of support from the Parma station team,” Clavijo said. “I feel like there are a lot of opportunities here. There’s a lot of work to be done for sure in the orchard and the lab and everything, but I’m really encouraged by the support I’m receiving from the university, and the willingness of the growers to partner and collaborate is amazing.”

Originally from La Paz, Bolivia, Clavijo earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural sciences and production from Zamorano University in Honduras. He continued his education at University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, where he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in horticultural sciences. Early on in his graduate studies, Clavijo completed an internship involving the use of LED lighting for the indoor production of leafy greens. He researched how to improve commercial production and water use efficiency in greens by manipulating the light spectrum.

As a master’s student, Clavijo studied the potential for a Florida olive industry.

“We evaluated three olive varieties in two locations to see how they would perform,” Clavijo said. “We also tested different strategies to establish those trees.”

Furthermore, Clavijo helped develop a tool to help olive farmers adjust their fertilization management practices under local growing conditions.

His doctoral dissertation entailed researching how a rootstock — the underground part of a plant onto which another variety is grafted — can affect the performance of the above-ground portion of a tree, known as the scion. He and his research team found that certain rootstocks improved the capacity of trees to uptake water and nutrients. The team also found that rootstocks can affect the expression of genes related to dormancy, which enables a tree to withstand winter temperatures while conserving energy for the growing season.