The influence of short duration grazing (SDG), moderate continuous grazing (MCG), heavy continuous graxlnr (HCG). and communities was evahtated over a 2Ormonth pe& on the Texas Agricultural Research Station, located near Sonora in the Edwards Plateau, Texas. A combination of cattle, sheep, and goats were used in each grazing treatment. Infiltration rates were consistently less in the midgrass (bunchgrass) than in the shortgrass (sodgrass) community. The HCG pasture was severely overgraxed and htfiltration rates were reduced to about one-half those in the MCG pasture. The mldgrasses in this pasture were destroyed after 26 months of overgrazing. Infiltration rates in the SDG pasture, stocked at double the recommended rate, decreased during the study period. Infiltration rates in the SDG pasture shortgrass community, near the end of the study, approached those in the HCG pasture. The greatest infiltration rates for both communities were maintaIned in the MCG pasture. Infiltration rates for the midgrass community remained relatively stable during the study when the general trend in the SDG and HCG pastures was toward reduced infiltration rates. The nongrazed pasture subsequent to the 1980 drought had a general increase in inflltratlon rates.

The influence of short duration grazing (SDG), moderate continuous grazing (MCG), heavy continuous grazing (HCG), and grazing exclusion on sediment production of midgrass and shortgrass-dominated communities was evaluated over a 20-month period on the Texas Agricultural Research Station located near Sonora in the Edwards Plateau, Texas. A combination of cattle, sheep, and goats was used in each grazing treatment. Sediment production was consistently less from the midgrass (bunchgrass) than from the shortgrass (sodgrass) community. The HCG pasture was severely overgrazed and resulted in excessive soil loss. The midgrasses in this pasture were destroyed after 26 months of overgrazing. Sediment production from the SDG pasture stocked at double the recommended rate increased during the study period. The SDG pasture, by the end of the study, had lost more sediment from both the midgrass-and shortgrass-dominated communities than the MCG pasture. Sediment loss from the midgrass community in the MCG pasture was consistently low during the study; however, sediment production from the shortgrass community decreased in the MCG pasture. Sediment production from the midgrass community in the non-grazed pasture remained consistently low throughout the study, but the shortgrass community showed a strong decrease in sediment loss during the study.