Every year, Morgan County is overrun by an aggressive weed called Dyer’s woad. Dyer’s woad is a non-palatable, aggressive weed that produces chemicals which inhibit growth in adjacent plants. It has established itself across thousands of acres of western rangeland where the Bureau of Land Management estimates that it can reduce grazing by 38 percent. It is now widespread in Morgan County, as well as in 24 other counties in the state. Dyer’s woad is a native of southeast Russia and has been used since the 17th century to produce a blue dye extract. It is thought to have been imported into California in contaminated alfalfa seed and appeared in Brigham City around 1910.
