Conservation grazing is not a recipe or a grazing plan. It is an approach that aims to use grazing for conservation outcomes. It has been variously defined as “livestock grazing that delivers multiple benefits for wildlife and people now and into the future,” and ‘the use of livestock where an important objective is to manage the site for wildlife, whether it be grassland, woodland, wetland or scrub, in addition to people’, among other descriptions (Tallowin 2021, Payne 2020).
Practically speaking, conservation grazing can be organized hierarchically from the general approach to relevant ecological knowledge or concepts, areas of management decisions that producers have control over on their farms and ranches, and finally specific practices within these management decision areas. See the figure picture here on the left. And the Introduction to Conservation Grazing Guide in the middle, and Grazing Plan template on the right.
Conservation Grazing Plan Template_v3
This Conservation Grazing toolkit is divided into two primary sections, first an overview of helpful ecological concepts that presents several core concepts within grassland ecology including heterogeneity and niche diversification, vegetation structure, plant responses to grazing, community change dynamics, and finally fire and grazing as a single linked ecological process.
And second, a compilation of example practices for managing grazing for conservation outcomes. These are organized by grazing system, stocking rate, grazing distribution, soil management, livestock type and breed, and animal behavior.
Ecological Concepts for Conservation Grazing
Niche Diversification: Manage Grazing to Increase Habitat Heterogeneity
Heterogeneity-based grazing balances forage maximization with the goal of creating diverse habitat niches. This may involve periodic and patchy intentional under- or over-grazing as understood by current best management grazing practices. These areas of less-than-optimal utilization are intended to rotate across the landscape creating a matrix of diverse habitat niches maximizing the biodiversity potential of the site.
Plant Response to Grazing: Manage Grazing to Guide Plant Community Composition
Livestock producers and other grazing land managers use knowledge (theory) of how plant species respond to grazing when they select practices to encourage specific plant communities. For the conservation grazing land manager, managing for desired sward species is supported by understanding species’ capacity to “resist” grazing through either avoidance or tolerance (Briske et al. 1991).
Community Change Dynamics: Managing Species Succession and Transitions to Improve Vegetative States
Grazing land managers need to accumulate knowledge of how grassland plant communities change over time in order to influence these changes. Land managers can use knowledge of plant succession, and state-and-transition models to anticipate how management will change plant communities. A key component is an understanding of your local ecology and how to steer plant communities.
Grazing and Fire as Ecological Disturbance Processes
Grasslands are critical habitat and grazing, applied appropriately, is a natural, ecological process necessary to maintain that habitat. In moist environments at lower elevations, grasslands would convert to forest habitats without regular disturbance, such as grazing, fire, or grazing and fire applied together, to arrest succession.
Conservation Grazing Practices
Grazing Systems
“Grazing Systems” refers to systems such as rotational or continuous grazing. The system or systems used will impact wildlife habitat, forage condition, ranch economic performance, and management time investment. Grazing systems have different, and sometimes surprising, affects on livestock production and habitat quality.
Stocking Rate
There is no right stocking rate; rather, there may be numerous appropriate stocking rates to achieve multiple and often quite different ecosystem landscape objectives (Fuhlendorf et al. 2012; Campbell et al. 2006).
Animal Type and Breed Selection – Draft
A local herder uses the local Hungarian grey cattle to utilize reeds that are difficult for many animals to graze on. His experience is that the native breed, compared to Simental, exhibit improved forage use, and can better digest the feed (convert it to energy). Click on the image link to read on.
Conservation Outcomes as a Paradigm Shift in Grazing Systems…old, needs to be reworked
Grassland management is undergoing a broad transition, as much in Europe as elsewhere. In North America this has been described as a transition from “utilitarian” focus on forage and livestock production to an “ecosystem management” approach. Click on the image link to read on.
Sward Diversification — needs to be reworked
When a grazing system transitions conventional fertilizers are not available. The site discussed here in northern England is under organic transition, and the farmer is variously trialing field mixes and practices to enhance AM fungi in their grazing system. Click on the image link to read on.