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Forage Kochia

Kochia prostrata (accepted: Bassia prostrata) · Amaranthaceae

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 5 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: California; Great Basin; Great Basin / Intermountain West; Northern Nevada / Great Basin; Utah / Intermountain West; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources

Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
- Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
  The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
Firewise Plants for Utah Landscapes (NR/FF/002) · Official scoped edition
- UT; partial normalized coverage · 2005-02-01
  Utah State University Extension states that this fact sheet selects examples for Utah landscapes and that they require proper placement and maintenance. FireApproved publishes 83 exact source owners at Utah publication scope. The table is not a site-specific planting clearance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WY.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: 1 sourced range or established record; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 4a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: 1 state noxious-weed seed record; set a location to match exact scope.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Forage Kochia (Kochia prostrata) — Photo: (c) Denys Vynokurov, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: shrub
USDA hardiness: Minimum 4a; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~2.5 ft
Water need: low
Grows in: AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT +1
Rated in: California; Great Basin; Great Basin / Intermountain West; Northern Nevada / Great Basin +2
Family: Amaranthaceae
Evidence: 6 cited sources

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record BAPR5 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 4a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -28°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Kochia prostrata · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 58837, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 40' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Fuel Breaks to Reduce Large Wildfire Impacts in Sagebrush…: common plant material option for a managed greenstrip in sagebrush ecosystems [nrcs-tn66-greenstrip] (with its recommendation)
Greenstrips: Another Tool to Manage Wildfire: common perennial plant used in a maintained northern Nevada greenstrip [unr-fs-97-36-greenstrip] (with its recommendation)
Forage Kochia Helps Fight Range Fires: species used in a semiarid western rangeland greenstrip [harrison-2002-greenstrip] (with its recommendation)
Low-volume and slow-burning vegetation for planting on cl…: Table 5: Plants not considered suitable for use to reduce fire hazards [nord-green-brushland-clearing-performance] (mid-scale rating)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (4)

Firewise Plants for Utah Landscapes (NR/FF/002) — Utah State University Extension · 2005 revision · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: usu-kuhns

“listed as a firewise plant for Utah landscapes”

Source says the plant can be firewise when properly used and maintained.
Fuel Breaks to Reduce Large Wildfire Impacts in Sagebrush Ecosystems (Plant Materials Technical Note 66) — USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Boise, Idaho · Plant Materials Technical Note 66 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: greenstrip-tree

“Common plant material options for greenstrips.”

Appendix B row: Forage Kochia (Kochia prostrata). Origin: Introduced; lifeform: Subshrub; relative height: Mid; seedling vigor: Low; longevity: Long. Precipitation zone: 8-16 in; soil texture: fine, medium, and coarse; seeds/lb: 395,000; single-species drill seeding rate: 2 lb/ac; seeding depth: 0-1/16 in. Recommended releases: Immigrant.
Greenstrips: Another Tool to Manage Wildfire (Fact Sheet 97-36) — University of Nevada Cooperative Extension · Fact Sheet 97-36 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: greenstrip-tree

“Common perennial plants used in greenstrips and selected characteristics important to their establishment and use”

Table 1 row: Forage Kochia (Kochia prostrata). Minimum yearly precipitation: 8-10 inches; salt or alkali tolerance: Moderate / High; status: I; growth form, flower color, or season: none printed; varieties: ‘Immigrant’. The fact sheet says greenstrips should be grazed or mown frequently enough to reduce fuel buildup; otherwise their effectiveness is reduced dramatically.
Forage Kochia Helps Fight Range Fires — Society for Range Management (Rangelands) · Rangelands 24(5) · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: greenstrip-tree

“forage kochia is a very effective greenstrip species for fire-prone landscapes”

The article identifies the table row as Kochia prostrata (L.) Schrad. It reports August moisture at four times crested wheatgrass and ten times cheatgrass; a 1998 wildfire flame-length drop from about 10 feet to under one foot; a 1993 controlled burn in which 50-foot forage-kochia plantings did not burn; and a simulated-strip fire that went out after two feet at 16.3 mph wind. It also says forage kochia can burn with ignitable fuels, that litter altered burn behavior, and that more quantitative research is needed.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database — Idaho Firewise (BLM + College of Western Idaho + Idaho Botanical Garden) · original source Primary evidence Field program lineage: idaho-tree

“fire-resistance score 7 of 10” · score 7 (idaho-0-10)

Listed without a rating (1)

Low-volume and slow-burning vegetation for planting on clearings in California chaparral — USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station · PSW-124 · original source Primary evidence Field program

“Plants not considered suitable for use to reduce fire hazards”

Kochia prostrata: Fine foliage and numerous erect stems; potential flash-fire fuel when dry.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

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Kochia prostrata (Forage Kochia). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/kochia-prostrata/. Last verified 2026-08-23.