Pity the sagebrush that stands in the way of a budding juniper tree.

The small, sweet-smelling sage stands little chance against the gnarled, twisted juniper.

The latter will muscle its way in, spread its roots around those of the sagebrush and zap all of the nutrients out of the soil. Eventually, the sagebrush will die while the juniper will flourish.

”I have never seen one tree kill another tree as I have seen a juniper kill a sagebrush,” said Tim Deboodt, Crook County extension agent. ”It’s not a strangulation (of the root system). It’s that the juniper sends a lot of roots to the site and actively begins growth so the sagebrush can’t.”

Dominance – not mere survival and reproduction – are trademarks of the emblematic High Desert tree, and junipers have exploded across the landscape of Central and Eastern Oregon in the past century, according to some rangeland ecologists.

Geographic areas like Bald Butte – named in the late 1800s for its lack of trees – near the Ochocos in Prineville is now covered with juniper trees.

In eastern Oregon, the region stretching from the eastern border of the Cascade mountains to the state’s border with Idaho, the amount of juniper forest totalled about 2.2 million acres, according to a 1999 report by a report by the Pacific Northwest Research Station.

By contrast, 53 years earlier, in 1936, a similar inventory estimated the juniper forestlands to cover about 420,000 acres.

Much of the population explosion occurred because of human actions – mainly fire suppression and cattle grazing – that created openings and a lack of competition for the rugged, desert tree, said Bill Marlett, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association. Marlett said the perception that juniper have invaded the West is wrong.

”Juniper are not everywhere,” Marlett said. ”If you look at a distribution map, you will note concentrations. But it is not like juniper are invading all public lands.”

While he acknowledged that juniper encroachment exists, Marlett cautioned that emphasis should be on restoring ecological balance, not eradicating juniper.

The juniper tree has flourished because it seizes opportunities to get rid of competition and snatch up much of the water within a system, said Rick Miller, professor of range ecology at Oregon State University’s Eastern Oregon agriculture research center.

But to paint the picture of a juniper as a voracious and selfish competitor oversimplifies the life history of this very complex tree, Miller said.

A native plant, western juniper – the species found in Oregon – arrived in Oregon about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, scientists believe. The tree flourished in cool, wet conditions. However, fires easily ravaged the tree, and biologists believe that a series of regular wildfires kept the juniper population at levels much lower than today’s.

In the late 1800s, as homesteaders settled the rugged High Desert, much of the juniper trees were cleared to make pastures for grazing cattle. At the same time, the climate shifted from cool, wet conditions to a warmer climate, Miller said.

The human impact on juniper trees was obvious. Cattle grazed many of the small shrubs and grasses, reducing the amount of fuels that carry wildfires. Moreover, humans actively extinguished wildfires and eliminated the regular fire regime that had kept juniper levels low.

That led to a ”slow motion explosion” of juniper said John Breese, a rancher from Prineville whose great grandfather homesteaded here in 1888. An admirer of the juniper tree, Breese said junipers are both beneficial and a nuisance.

”They are a native species and part of the ecosystem,” he said. ”The problem we see is its expansion over millions and millions of acres. When they take over and become a canopy, they keep going until they take over all the other species.”

Juniper trees can survive nearly everywhere, and the plant has different ways of adapting to different soils. On sun-kissed slopes, the soil is relatively shallow, which leads to juniper domination as the roots spread through the limited soil and leave nothing for other plants.

However on northern facing slopes in deeper soil, grasses can survive along with junipers, he said.

In areas where juniper dominate the site and no other plants grow, the soil can be vulnerable to erosion during heavy rainstorms.

Juniper will also suck much of the moisture out of a system, said Glenn Adams, range management specialist on the Crooked River National Grasslands. On an 80 degree day, a tree that is about 12 inches in diameter will use between 25 to 50 gallons per day, he said.

Juniper encroachment on the grassland, a 112,000-acre area north of Bend that is administered by the U.S. Forest Service, has managers writing an in-depth analysis on the best way to restore many of the native grasses that have been usurped by the tree.

While managers scratch their heads over the best way to manage juniper, many fans of the gnarled, twisted, unique trees admire the heartiness of the old growth juniper. The oldest dated juniper is located about 20 miles east of Bend and is 1,600 years old, Miller said.

Mark Corbett ”hunts” big juniper trees, hoping to find champion sizes for the American Forests Registry of Big Trees, an annual catalog of the largest trees of many species throughout the country.

”I disagree that juniper are invasive,” he said. ”They are amazing. Some are huge, and many are old.”

To have living trees in Central Oregon that took root before Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain is unique, and the trees should be valued, he said.

”You may be in a community today that is very rich in wildlife species, but in 20 years, juniper may have pushed out the shrubs and there will be fewer species of wildlife,” ecologist Miller said.

As managers continue to study rangeland, ecology and wildlife, there are still questions about the best way to manage juniper and how many trees should be allowed to remain in certain areas.

Many in the High Desert who admire how well the tree has adapted, said Stu Garrett of the native plant society.

”I love the old trees when they get gnarled and crooked and beat up by the weather.” Garrett said. ”They are struggling for life in a harsh environment.”

Rachel Odell can be reached at 541-617-7811 or rodell@bendbulletin.com.