An integrated approach to grazingland ecological assessments and management interpretations

Toledo, David; Sanderson, Matt A.; Goslee, Sarah C.

doi:10.2489/jswc.69.4.110a

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The PCS indicates the utility of an area for livestock production or factors that limit production potential (Sanderson et al, 2009). The strengths of these two protocols have been combined into an Integrated Grazingland Assessment (IGA; Toledo et al, 2014Toledo et al, , 2016 to provide both ecological assessments relative to site potential and management interpretations (Fig. 7).…”

Section: Tools To Assess Resilience In Forage-livestock Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience in Forage and Grazinglands

et al. 2018

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The current reality of population growth, resource scarcity, and climate change requires resilient agroecosystems to sustain food production and protect the environment. This manuscript reflects a combined effort of speakers at the 2017 C6 Forage and Grazinglands Division Symposium, which was titled “Resiliency in Forage and Grazinglands.” The symposium brought together speakers representing a diverse cross‐section of forage systems across the United States. Each speaker discussed resilience‐related topics from their specific region, including: the importance of diversity and use of complementary forages in grazing systems, how grazing and defoliation affect resilience, the importance of soil fertility and pest management, and development of decision aids to evaluate resilience in grazinglands. Several themes emerged that we propose would help improve the resilience of forage and grazingland systems: (i) identifying moderately diverse, site‐specific mixtures (grasses–legumes) for use in specific regions of the United States, (ii) greater use of complementary forage species such as C3 and C4 grasses to lengthen the grazing season and provide a buffer against weather variation, (iii) adoption of moderate defoliation intensities to help stabilize forage production and species composition, (iv) more attention to maintaining and improving soil fertility to improve the productivity of desirable forage species and reduce weed pressure, and (v) increase adoption of assessment tools to evaluate the relative “health” and potential resilience of forage‐livestock systems. An integrative management approach that combines many of these elements would help improve the resilience of forage and grazinglands to sustain high productivity under increasingly erratic and extreme weather.

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Section: Tools To Assess Resilience In Forage-livestock Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience in Forage and Grazinglands

et al. 2018

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“…State‐and‐transition models are becoming popular tools to explain the plausible outcomes and changes in landscapes over time resulting from these factors. These models assume pastures are in a discrete state—for instance, excellent, good, fair, or poor condition—but also consider the factors (including the human dimensions) that cause a transition from one discrete state to another (Bestelmeyer et al, 2004; Toledo et al, 2014).…”

Section: Theory and Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stakeholder participation in the design, implementation, and evaluation of forage and livestock research can alert researchers to issues, interpretations, and ideas that increase producer adoption (Didier and Brunson, 2004; Emery and Franks, 2012) while protecting the health and well‐being of the environment and the surrounding community (Toledo et al, 2014). Including social scientists on the research team can make study results more user‐friendly.…”

Section: Theory and Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the real world, we know this is not true. Rather, pasture and rangeland ecosystems respond to biotic (grazing, pathogens, and insects) and abiotic (drought, cold, and heat) events and, thus, the state of the ecosystem fluxes (Toledo et al, 2014). State-and-transition models are becoming popular tools to explain the plausible outcomes and changes in landscapes over time resulting from these factors.…”

Section: Describing the Dynamic: Measuring And Assessing The Value Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Describing the Dynamic: Measuring and Assessing the Value of Plants in the Pasture

Kallenbach

2015

Crop Science

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The dynamic nature of pastures makes them difficult to quantify. Understanding the near‐constant change in plant morphology and development in relation to both biotic (grazing, pathogens, and insects) and abiotic (drought, cold, and heat) events provide the scientific basis for optimizing pasture management plans. Challenges include (i) the cost, primarily for skilled labor, to measure these parameters and (ii) having a scientific team large enough and diverse enough to analyze and interpret the data. New technologies offer opportunities to inexpensively measure pasture growth dynamics. Lasers, ultrasound, drones, satellite images, global positioning systems, and radio frequency identification systems offer innovative researchers new methods to rapidly quantify important characteristics of soils, plants, animals, and even the people of pasture ecosystems. The successful research teams of tomorrow need to be as dynamic and as diverse as the pastures they hope to measure. Blending traditional soil, plant, and animal scientists with scientists from other disciplines (e.g., engineers, computer scientists, geographers, economists, human nutritionists, sociologists, and psychologists) can bring new perspectives about what makes a pasture good. Linking research teams to end users—not only farmers, but also investors, consumers, environmentalists, critics, and policymakers—provides the opportunity to use dynamic pasture measurements to build a more productive yet healthier planet.

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“…As stated in the National Range and Pasture Handbook (Butler et al 2006), "agronomic solutions to forage growth enhancement will only be as effective as that grazing management regime allows." While developing the framework described above and during previous research (Toledo et al 2014), we identified indicator redundancies and methodological deficiencies. The main deficiencies have been stated earlier and include lack of management interpretations in IIRH and lack of reference conditions in PCS.…”

Section: Attribute Ratings Soil and Site Stability N-s N-s N-s N-s N-mentioning

confidence: 99%