Grazing methods and herbage allowances effects on animal performances in natural grassland grazed during winter and spring with early pregnant ewes

Jochims, Felipe; Poli, César Henrique Espírito Candal; Carvalho, P. C. F.; David, Diego Bitencourt de; Campos, Nascimento; Fonseca, Lidiane; Amaral, Guilherme Pires

doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2013.05.006

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In smaller paddocks, rotational stocking is used to ensure a higher harvesting efficiency of the forage. Studies carried out in the region have not found evidence of advantages of any stocking method, given the appropriate forage on offer is maintained (Berretta et al, 2000;Jochims et al, 2013). It is worth noting that none of the studies was carried out at the long term or at the farm level.…”

Section: Stocking Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Native Grasslands at the Core: A New Paradigm of Intensification for the Campos of Southern South America to Increase Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Jaurena¹,

Durante²,

Devincenzi³

et al. 2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Extensive livestock production in southern South America occupies ~0.5 M km2 in central-eastern Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil. These systems have been sustained for more than 300 years by year-long grazing of the highly biodiverse native Campos ecosystems that provides many valuable additional ecosystem services. However, their low productivity (~70 kg liveweight/ha per year), at least relative to values recorded in experiments and by best farmers, has been driving continued land use conversion towards agriculture and forestry. Therefore, there is a pressing need for usable, cost effective technological options based on scientific knowledge that increase profitability while supporting the conservation of native grasslands. In the early 2000s, existing knowledge was synthesized in a path of six sequential steps of increasing intensification. Even though higher productivity underlined that path, it was recognized that trade-offs would occur, with increases in productivity being concomitant to reductions in diversity, resilience to droughts, and a higher exposure to financial risks. Here, we put forward a proposal to shift the current paradigm away from a linear sequence and toward a flexible dashboard of intensification options to be implemented in defined modules within a farm whose aims are (i) to maintain native grasslands as the main feed source, and (ii) ameliorate its two major productive drawbacks: marked seasonality and relatively rapid loss of low nutritive value-hence the title “native grasslands at the core.” At its center, the proposal highlights a key role for optimal grazing management of native grasslands to increase productivity and resilience while maintaining low system wide costs and financial risk, but acknowledges that achieving the required spatio-temporal control of grazing intensity requires using (a portfolio of) complementary, synergistic intensification options. We sum up experimental evidence and case studies supporting the hypothesis that integrating intensification options increases both profitability and environmental sustainability of livestock production in Campos ecosystems.

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Section: Stocking Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Native Grasslands at the Core: A New Paradigm of Intensification for the Campos of Southern South America to Increase Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Jaurena¹,

Durante²,

Devincenzi³

et al. 2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Farmers need near real-time information of forage quality and quantity at the paddock scale to properly manage forage resources (Diaz-Solis et al 2006;Grigera, Oesterheld, and Pacin 2007;Phillips et al 2009). A cattle management system in which forage allowance (kg forage/kg body weight) is regulated on a seasonal basis can improve animal performance and forage condition (Soca and Orcasberro 1992;Jochims et al 2013). It is easy to find the divisor of this ratio, the stocking rate, but it is difficult to determine the dividend, forage biomass, due to its variable nature in both time and space.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating forage quantity and quality under different stress and senescent biomass conditions via spectral reflectance

Durante

Oesterheld

Piñeiro

et al. 2014

International Journal of Remote Sensing

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Assessing forage quantity and quality through remote sensing can facilitate grassland and pasture management. However, the high spatial and temporal variability of canopy conditions may limit the predictive accuracy of models based on reflectance measurements. The objective of this work was to develop this type of models, and to challenge their capacity to predict plant properties under a wide range of environmental conditions. We manipulated Paspalum dilatatum canopies through different stress treatments (flooding, drought, nutrient availability, and control) and by artificially varying the amount of senescent biomass. We measured canopy reflectance and constructed simple models, based on either normalized vegetation indices or a few selected wavebands, to estimate biomass and two variables related to forage quality: proportion of photosynthetic vegetation and biomass C:N ratio. General models satisfactorily predicted plant properties for the whole set of environmental conditions, but failed under specific conditions such as drought (for estimates of plant biomass), fertilization (for estimates of C:N ratio), and different levels of senescent tillers (for estimates of the proportion of photosynthetic vegetation). Where general models failed, specific models, based on different bands, achieved satisfactory accuracy. The general models performed better when based on a few selected bands than when based on two-band vegetation indices, having better accuracy (higher R 2 ) and parsimony (lower BIC). However specific models performed similarly for both approaches (similar R 2 and BIC). These results indicate that these plant properties can be predicted from reflectance information under a broad range of conditions, but not for some particular conditions, where ancillary data or more complex models are probably needed to increase predictive accuracy.

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Quantifying the value to the farmer from adopting climate risk-reducing technologies

Rosas

Sans

2023

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

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Grazing methods and herbage allowances effects on animal performances in natural grassland grazed during winter and spring with early pregnant ewes

Cited by 4 publications

References 14 publications

Native Grasslands at the Core: A New Paradigm of Intensification for the Campos of Southern South America to Increase Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Native Grasslands at the Core: A New Paradigm of Intensification for the Campos of Southern South America to Increase Economic and Environmental Sustainability

Estimating forage quantity and quality under different stress and senescent biomass conditions via spectral reflectance

Quantifying the value to the farmer from adopting climate risk-reducing technologies

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