Improving ground cover and landscape function in a semi-arid rangeland through alternative grazing management

Effects of grazing management on spatio-temporal heterogeneity of soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions of grasslands and rangelands: Monitoring, assessment and scaling-up

“…Multi-paddock grazing systems essentially control/adapt livestock distribution in time and space to promote adequate pasture recovery. The benefits of multi-paddock rotational grazing on livestock production have been realized (Teague et al, 2013;McDonald et al, 2018), but remain contentious in terms of the benefits to improving both, plant community productivity and grazing land sustainability, in comparison to continuous grazing (Briske et al, 2008;de Groot et al, 2010).…”

“…Despite of efforts to optimize grazing strategies moving from continuous to intensive multi-paddock grazing, long-term sustainable goals of grazing management have not been reached (Briske et al, 2011a(Briske et al, , 2014Li et al, 2007;Suttie et al, 2005). The debate regarding the benefits of multi-paddock grazing to productivity, compared to less intensive continuous grazing, has been prolonged due to inconsistences between grazing study methodologies, as well as the actual practices used by ranchers (Teague et al, 2013;McDonald et al, 2018;Briske et al, 2008). These inconsistences are mainly due to effects of spatial and temporal scales, in addition to inherent intra-and inter-annual variability of grazing land systems (Briske et al, 2008(Briske et al, , 2011(Briske et al, , 2014Mann and Sherren, 2018;Teague, 2018).…”

“…In Ireland, adoption rates of multipaddock rotational grazing among ranchers have been low despite extensive promotion of its advantages (Hyland et al, 2018). This pattern is attributed to various inconsistences between field trials and on-farm/rangeland practices or the inability to use research results effectively, thereby guiding grazing management in the desired direction (Teague et al, 2013;McDonald et al, 2018;Briske et al, 2008). Particularly, sustainability, conservation goals and ecosystem services are much broader than traditional sustainability of forage and livestock production, including, soil health, GHG, carbon sequestration, water quality and quantity, and biodiversity (Bogena et al, 2010).…”

Effects of Grazing Management on Spatio-Temporal Heterogeneity of Soil Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Grasslands and Rangelands: Monitoring, Modelling and Upscaling

“…The debate regarding the benefits of multi-paddock grazing to productivity, compared to less intensive continuous grazing, has been prolonged due to inconsistences between grazing study methodologies, as well as the actual practices used by ranchers [8][9][10]. This includes: (1) nuanced differences in grazing treatments, contrasting methods during soil sampling and chemical analyses, and variation in statistical analyses to compile data over the long-term, leading to different formats, accuracies, units and structures of long-term data, and ultimately to inconsistent interpretation of results and perception [54], (2) varied vegetation and soil responses to grazing along specific abiotic ecological gradients [36], and (3) high temporal and spatial heterogeneity.…”

“…In Ireland, adoption rates of multi-paddock rotational grazing among ranchers have been low despite extensive promotion of its advantages [25]. This pattern is attributed to various inconsistences between field trials and on-farm/rangeland practices or the inability to use research results effectively, thereby guiding grazing management in the desired direction [8][9][10]. To address this debate about the benefits of multi-paddock rotational grazing on livestock production we must critically examine the data and methods of grazing management that make a clear distinction between the relations of essence and appearance.…”