Jack Baird, who runs sheep and cattle on over 30,000 acres near Thermopolis, calls cheatgrass “a little thief” because it robs moisture from native grasses on the sections of land he uses for grazing.

Fellow rancher Chip Axtell of Hot Springs County estimates at least 20% of his own rangeland and farm have been taken over by cheatgrass, which is only green in the early spring and late fall. This limits where he can graze his cattle and is especially damaging during a drought.

“Cheatgrass grabs up all the moisture, so the native grasses get pushed out,” Axtell said. “If you keep stressing the land further with grazing or drought, it just becomes the predominant grass that’s around.”

More than $32 million has been lost in agricultural land and wildlife habitat last year due to cheatgrass, a fast-growing invasive weed known. It is an ecological nightmare for wildlife and land managers.

University of Wyoming researchers estimate if cheatgrass continues to spread, annual losses could exceed $109.8 million.

Cheatgrass, also known as downy brome, literally creates a drought state on the landscape even when Wyoming is not in a drought. Since the 1800s, this invasive weed has been choking out native grasses and “cheating” them out of the nutrients and soil.

“It is actually a pretty pathetic grass with a minimal root system,” Nancy Fleming, the Wind River Bighorn Basin District’s invasive annual grass coordinator, told Cowboy State Daily. “But it’s seed production is tremendous.”

One cheatgrass plant can produce 200 seeds viable for up to 11 years. Thousands will sit in a seed bank in the first few inches of soil, just waiting to germinate.

“The cheatgrass takeover has been going on for over a century,” Axtell said. “It grows wherever there’s a disturbance in the ground such as a two-track, or any digging. The cheatgrass comes in because the seeds get started in that disturbed ground.”

 Axtell said he has been battling cheatgrass his entire life and tries not to graze all the grass in order to leave the native grass healthy and keep the cheatgrass at bay.

 “There’s no silver bullet when it comes to invasive annual grasses, particularly cheat grass,” Fleming said. “Cheatgrass is something that we’re managing. It’s not something that we will eradicate.”

The Evil Enemy

Cheatgrass is an invasive annual grass that’s not native to North America. It came from Europe and Eurasia in the mid- to late 1800s as a contaminant in seed and straw, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

“It’s been noted in every state in the lower 48 but it’s causing more destruction in the Western States because of our climate,” Fleming said.

Cheatgrass grows in the winter and sprouts its roots under the snow. It is the first plant to green up in the spring. As an annual, it dies off each year and has a different growing cycle that Wyoming’s native perennial grass.

Cheatgrass’ sole purpose is to produce as much seed as possible before dying off every June. Then in becomes another type of menace: Fuel for fire. 

 “It takes one lightning strike to get a fire started,” Fleming said. “That fuel load created by dead cheatgrass helps spread the fire quickly through this country.”

The USGS reported that cheatgrass has disrupted the fire cycle in sagebrush habitat and other western ecosystems, leading to more frequent and more intense burns. Those fires subsequently destroy native grasses and sage.

“Invasives come back the next year and so the fire doesn’t affect them,” Fleming said. “As a result, we see this reoccurring, increased fire cycle that is not typical for this area.”

Fleming said fires typically burn every 30 years in grass and sage ecosystems, but thanks to cheatgrass they are occurring every five years or sooner.

Last August, the Red Canyon Fire burned more than 126,000 acres outside of Thermopolis. Several organizations are monitoring the land to beat back the expected surge of cheatgrass. The fire started from a lightning strike on Axtell’s ranch and spread to neighboring ranches.

“Cheatgrass has the first opportunity to get the moisture and get started,” Axtell said. “With this fire, they’re really watching to see where it’s going to come back.”

Axtell said a grant for more than $8 million has been allocated to fight cheatgrass in the burn area. He is hopeful that by being proactive they will keep the cheatgrass to a minimum.   

Benefits of Cheatgrass

“When it’s green, cheat grass actually has some decent protein and a forge quality to it,” Fleming said. “But it’s only green from April to maybe June which is a very short window.”

Baird admits that because the cheat grass can be beneficial, he has mixed emotions about the expense of eradicating it.  

“If you get a good fall rain, it might stay green under the snow until December or January,” he said. “Those cows are getting green feed and getting protein naturally from the cheatgrass.”

Baird said cheatgrass can be up to 18% protein in the early season, but cattle will have little of the grass to graze. The good grass, according to Baird, might only be 6% protein in the winter, but even when it dries it still has good feed value.

Cheatgrass, on the other hand, has no feed value once in dries in the spring.

 Although experts say they can only manage the weed, not eradicate it, they are seeing successes.  

“The best tools that we have for long-term management is herbicides,” Fleming said. “We have been using products like Rejuvra to treat invasive annual grasses on a large-landscape scale.”

The goal is to target seed sources. Plants would not only grow but viable seed would also be eliminated.

Baird had five acres sprayed with the herbicide and noticed the cheatgrass was not as productive. However, the herbicide’s expense makes the treatment prohibitive on much of his 30,000 acres of grazing leases and private property. It is close to $50 an acre to treat, he said.

So far, Fleming said, studies have shown if an area is treated twice, much of the cheatgrass will be eliminated and native grasses can regain their lost foothold.

“What we’re finding is that when you treat, your perennial grass production nearly doubles in the treated areas and your annual grass does nothing,” Fleming said.

 By eliminating cheatgrass, Fleming said studies show the perennial grass has access to nutrients and water.

“Our grass feels good again,” Fleming said. “It’s not in a drought state anymore nor being suppressed. It’s actually being vigorous, more productive.”

Fleming said that these more resilient, productive, perennial species would then be more competitive when cheatgrass re-enters the landscape.

 Landowners have access to the herbicide at local weed and pest offices and can apply for grants to apply the chemical.

“Rejuvra is fairly new, and it’s kind of a proven chemical, so we probably will get on a program now,” Axtell said. “Before, there was no guarantee that what you were going to use with Plateau or other chemicals was really going to give you that great of control.”

A Work In Progress

Axtell said that as more people treat for cheatgrass, it will help.

“You would no longer have neighbors who aren’t treating while you’re still battling cheatgrass coming in from around you,” Axtell said. “It’s helpful that the chemical is so good at what it does.”

For those who are concerned about using an herbicide, more labor-intensive options are available, although these techniques have not been as effective. Axtell said they have tried these techniques themselves but have seen little effect against cheatgrass.

“We try not to graze in the spring and graze in the fall and let those natives propagate and come back,” Axtell said. “We’ve tried grazing with goats. We’ve tried real early spring grazing with high intensity and then getting off to try to graze out the cheatgrass.

“It just seems like once it’s there, it’s really hard to re-establish some natives.”

Baird said current drought conditions have actually naturally helped in the battle against the cheatgrass.

“Down on my BLM allotment, where it was basically a monoculture of cheatgrass, there was absolutely nothing green there at all,” Baird said. “The cheatgrass didn’t have the moisture, so the deep-rooted native grasses took hold before the cheatgrass even had a chance to germinate.”

Fleming said she has visited other states where the cheatgrass had destroyed wildlife habitats and agricultural lands, and said it was heartbreaking.

“I work really closely with the BLM, and every single year, we’re spraying a large section of public land for invasive grasses,” Fleming said, “The idea is, hopefully, we can start connecting larger chunks of property together by working with private landowners on larger projects.”

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.

Wine country in America usually evokes a mental image of a rolling, manicured hill with velvet ropes and a snobbish sommelier somewhere in California. 

In Wyoming, with its high prairie wind and winters that can plunge to 30 degrees below zero, it’s more likely to elicit laughter or some sage advice — such as, “Don’t try this at home, kiddos.”

The odds are definitely not in the wine grape grower’s favor. It’s windy, it’s cold, and there’s a short-short growing season, which tightens even more at elevation.

Still, every now and then, there are ambitious souls who decide to give it a try — and succeed.

Mustang Mountain Winery near Lovell, for example, and Table Mountain Vineyards near Huntley in southeast Wyoming are among the few pioneers who not only successfully grow grapes but turned them into a profitable winery. 

Christopher Volzke and his wife, Angie, with Unlocked Vines, are latest to join this small club with a cold-pressed winery in Casper.

Wyoming Isn’t Coast Of California

It hasn’t been an easy road. Volzke has lost track of the number of times people have told him he probably wouldn’t be able to grow winery grapes in Wyoming. 

But he’s a farm kid from north-central South Dakota. So, stubbornness — perseverance in polite company — comes naturally. 

“I think my wife and I both consider ourselves a bit of serial hobbyists,” he said with a chuckle. “I think we like to find challenges and see if we can make things happen where otherwise maybe there hasn’t been a lot of action.”

Growing up on a fifth-generation ranch made him confident, despite what everyone told him, that he could get grapes to grow in Wyoming. 

“You just have to be selective on what you’re growing,” he said. “You have to approach it in a different way than if we were on the coast of California.”

That meant amending thick clay soils as well as engineering a next-level trellis system to keep his vines healthy and intact despite Wyoming’s infamous wind.

But Wyoming Is Great For Grapes

Wyoming has some positives to offer, Volzke said. Those hot days and cool nights — a dramatic diurnal shift — protect the acidity wines need to keep them from becoming too flabby or jammy. 

“It’s one of the reasons you don’t really see wine grapes in Florida,” he said.

Heat without a cool night drop isn’t conducive to making the best wines.

Wyoming’s low humidity is another gift for wine grapes. 

It means Volzke doesn’t have to worry as much about classic grape diseases such as powdery mildew. That creates the possibility for minimal or even no-spray viticulture.

Of course, the big trick to growing wine grapes is choosing varieties that can survive up to minus-30 temperatures.

That’s been a multi-year process. 

“For instance, a South Dakota grape that survives down to like negative-50 called Valiant makes a wonderful jam,” he said. “It doesn’t make a great wine. So just because it grows out here doesn’t mean it’s a great wine grape.”

Crimson Pearl and Frontenac

He particularly admires another cold-hardy white grape called La Crescent. It survives Wyoming winters just fine. But its early bud break means it’s vulnerable to the state’s notorious late-season snowstorms. 

That severely limits its yield and, for now, has him importing that grape from Buffalo, New York, to use in their first commercially available white blend.

That’s a problem he hopes breeding programs will eventually solve. 

“That’s exactly what Tom Plocher does as a private breeder,” Volzke said. “He’s trying to take things and make them suitable for different regions. There’s a whole science behind it. So that’s the reason we have Crimson Pearl even though it buds really late in the season.”

For now, he’s growing Frontenac blanc for his white wines, a newer variety developed within the last 10 years by the University of Minnesota. 

“It has really nice acidity and kind of stone fruit flavors,” Volzke said. “And then the red we’re doing is from Tom Plocher as well, and that one’s called Crimson Pearl.”

The Crimson Pearl offers a bright red color and a fresh fruit flavor with medium acidity. 

The Real Litmus Test

For a long time, Volzke’s winemaking hobby existed in a kind of limbo where friends insisted he could sell his wines, but the couple wasn’t sure anyone outside family and friends would feel the same.

The turning point came when they submitted a red blend to Winemaker Magazine International’s Amateur Wine Competition. It was just for fun to see how they’d do.

When the results came back, they’d earned a silver medal, much to the Volzkes’ surprise. 

“It was validating for me because, yes, we’ve had a lot of friends and family and acquaintances that have tasted our wine over the years,” he said. “But you never really know if you’re getting an unbiased response. Winemaker magazine doesn’t know who we are from anyone else. So it was a good litmus test for could this product stand on its own.”

An Old-World Twist

Aside from growing grapes in a state not known for being hospitable to them, what makes Unlocked Vines unusual is its fermenter.

They’ve imported a Speidel FermentEgg from Germany. They first saw egg-shaped fermenters at Tony Bish Wines in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. There they learned that it’s part of an old-world winemaking method.

“Wine a long time ago was made in clay pots called amphoras, and now a lot of it is just done in big drums,” Volzke explained. “When we were in New Zealand, we went to a winery that was using concrete eggs to do all their fermentation, because the shape of an egg has a golden ratio.”

The natural egg shape, it turns out, promotes natural circulation in a vat of fermenting wine.

“That way you don’t get hot spots in your fermentation process, which can cause off flavors,” Volzke said. “So when we came back, we decided we could probably use that concept.”

Rather than concrete, however, they’ve sourced a slightly more modern vessel manufactured for the winemaking industry in Germany. 

Volzke also limits the additives in his wines to keep them closer to old-world techniques. 

“The FDA allows I think it’s more than 200 different additives in a bottle of wine that don’t have to be listed in the ingredient list,” Volzke said. “So sometimes, when you’re having a bottle of wine from a large commercial producer, they’re putting in additives for color. They’re adding things for flavor and tannin structure.”

Volzke wants to keep it as close to grapes and yeast for his process. 

“I’d call that intervention winemaking,” he said of the heavy-additive style. “We just use a minimal amount of sulfite to make sure it’s shelf stable, but no more than we need to.”

Wine Best Paired With People

Unlocked Vines is starting at a time when overall alcohol consumption is under more scrutiny, with some prominent health guidelines saying there’s really no safe amount.

Volzke is keenly aware that people are becoming much more selective about wines and spirits, choosing fewer but better glasses when they do indulge.

He plans to keep the winery small, starting with just 600 bottles this year. He hopes to ramp that up to 1,200 next year and then around 3,000 by year three.

It’s going to stay a tiny, micro-winery with a hand-grown, hand-bottled, hand-corked product that feels accessible to regular people.

“I think wine in general, the industry puts up a lot of barriers,” he said. “Like you have to know a bunch about it, or what foods to pair it with. And honestly, I think that’s a lot of nonsense. Wine is best paired with people, not food. Like a really good bottle of wine while sitting on the patio telling stories with friends who are in town is a much more memorable experience than getting it paired with the right piece of fish.”

So, rather than filling every available shelf space, Unlocked Vines has started with a single Casper restaurant, Whiskey Butter, which will carry its signature Ampersand white blend. 

Whiskey Butter is the kind of place Volzke believes will help them tell a good story about their winery. 

Unlocked Vines has also opened an online store and is already permitted to ship to 38 states. A few bottles have landed as far away as New York City. 

If someone that far away loves a Wyoming white blend because it tasted good on their porch, that will be enough validation for Volzke.

He’s been telling everyone all along that grapes will grow in Wyoming, and if they grow their way to New York tables, well he was obviously right, wasn’t he?

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.

Allowing cattle to graze in a portion of the Gros Ventre Range will get cattle and grizzly bears killed, according to environmental groups planning a lawsuit to stop it. 

Cattlemen say that shouldn’t be a concern, because cattle and bears have long been near each other in the area.

At issue is whether cattle should be allowed on about 35,000 acres in the Elk Ridge Complex. That’s in the Gros Ventre Range on the Bridger-Teton National Forest about 30 miles southeast of Jackson.

That would put cattle in prime grizzly habitat, and the bears would be tempted to kill them, ecologist John Carter of Bondurant told Cowboy State Daily. 

And the bears would be killed in turn, he added. 

Carter founded the Yellowstone to Uintas Connection. It’s one of a coalition of groups that filed a 60-day notice of intent Friday to sue the Forest Service under the Endangered Species Act to stop the grazing. 

The Forest Service authorized temporary cattle grazing during 2026 and 2027 in the Elk Ridge Complex.

In an email to Cowboy State Daily, Upper Green River Cattlemen’s Association president Coke Landers said worries about grizzlies getting killed are exaggerated. 

“It isn’t a concern; it’s the same bears and the same livestock. We and the Game and Fish have a great working relationship when it comes to bear/cattle conflict, and I’m sure it will continue,” he wrote.

A voluntary buyout of sheep grazing rights took place there in 2016. That was done partly to protect bighorn sheep, which are vulnerable to contracting pneumonia infections from domestic sheep. 

“Of course, there were also conflicts with grizzlies,” Carter said. 

According to researchers’ annual mortality reports, grizzlies being killed by wildlife agencies for preying on livestock is a leading causes of bear deaths in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. 

‘No Forage Deficit’

The Forest Service claims cattle had to be shifted into the Elk Ridge Complex because adjacent allotments were burned in 2025 wildfires. 

Carter said he doesn’t buy that argument.

Forest Service monitoring data indicates forage in the wildfire area is still adequate for “50% use” for grazing, he said. 

“There’s no forage deficit (in the fire zone) and no reason to be moving cattle into the Elk Ridge allotments, even if those other pastures did burn,” he said. 

Landers said that shifting some cattle into the Elk Ridge area will help the burned areas recover, with no direct economic benefit to ranchers. 

“The benefit is all ecological; it provides a grazing resource while the affected resource is allowed to rest. We are not trucking up extra numbers of cattle to use the new resource,” he wrote.

Thousands of cattle are grazed in the Upper Green River basin, he added, noting there are 11 permits for the Upper Green River Cattlemen’s Association. 

The area is “roughly permitted for 7,300 head,” and ranchers are running about 6,000 cattle there, Landers said. 

“The grazing that will happen on the Elk Ridge Complex is a temporary authorization of use to offset the effects of the Pack Trail fire and the Dollar Lake fire,” he said. “The cattle may be from any one of the 11 permits, since we are a common grazing allotment and are not sorted by ownership into pasture systems.” 

‘Backroom Deals And Dead Bears’

Carter said he and other members of the coalition also think the Forest Service didn’t provide adequate public notice or allow for comment before authorizing the grazing shift.

It’s a matter of “backroom deals and dead bears,” he said. 

“We just happened to stumble across it (notice of the grazing authorization)” buried deep in Forest Service documents, Carter said. 

Landers said everything was above board. 

“I believe the forest service acted totally within their authority as the manager of the resource,” he wrote.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.