Changing Grazing Practices

It is good to see common sense occurring.  Ranch land needs intermittent trees to provide intermittent shade in the tropics and to dump nutrient rich leaves on the ground.  Cattle need to drift from one pasturage to another as often as makes good sense to allow strong rich forage recovery.

This is what they do naturally.

Seeing a herd sit in the same field all summer never worked too well as grass was taken too soon and as much freshly trampled to boot.

I suspect that the Sahel in Africa can be put under fifty percent cover from acacia, while growing full crops underneath in conjunction with forage for the dry season.  Fitting cattle into such a regime is obviously recommended.

Bad husbandry has tradition only behind it.

Study urges different grazing practices

by Staff Writers

New York (UPI) May 3, 2011 

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Study_urges_different_grazing_practices_999.html

Rotational grazing of cattle on Brazil's native pasturelands could have benefits for both cattle and wildlife, U.S. researchers say.

A study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society says grazing cattle in small areas for shorter periods before moving onto other pastures results in a greater forage base and larger, more valuable cattle. The practice also reduces incentives for deforestation, uncontrolled burning and replacement of native vegetation with exotic grasses, a conservation society release said Tuesday.

The study showed the forage base of native grasses in Brazil's Pantanal and Cerrado regions was greater in areas that were rotationally grazed and produced cattle that were 15 percent heavier.

"The results of this study show a potential win-win situation for the Pantanal and Cerrado's ranches and wildlife," study lead author Donald Parsons Eaton of the conservation society said. "Using rotational grazing techniques will produce healthier cattle for ranchers and help safeguard wildlife that call home to this incredibly biodiverse region."

Many areas in the region have already been converted to large-scale, non-sustainable ranching operations, replacing native forests and savannas with exotic grasses.

While producing high profits in the short term, the technique leaves behind an impoverished, deforested landscape prone to erosion and drought that threatens wildlife conservation, cattle health and herd production, the study said.