Strategic-Rotational Grazing in Beef-Pastures for Improving Sustainability: As Measured By Soil Health, and Forage Productivity.

Continuous improvement of the grazing management system, for a healthy, productive, and more-sustainable beef-pasture, is important to sustain agroecosystems in much of the world. This study compares the “strategic-rotational grazing” with “conventional grazing” in terms of soil health, and forage productivity. In 2015, baseline soil health soil respiration was measured in 10 conventionally managed Southern Piedmont pastures (9.31-21.62 hectares). Soil health indicators were measured in 18% of randomly selected locations of a 50m grid (“matrix”) of the pastures, and specific areas with high cattle activity (“AOIs”). In June 2016, strategic-rotational grazing (exclusion of nutrient-rich AOIs and over-seeding with forage mix, lure management of cattle, moderate rotational grazing) was implemented in five pastures and five remained conventional. During the baseline study, soil respiration was significantly higher in the “non-excluded areas” as compared to the “excluded areas”. After implementation of Strategic-Rotational grazing, there was no statistical difference between the non-excluded areas and excluded areas in terms of soil respiration. The soil respiration significantly increased in the excluded areas. This suggests the usefulness of excluding the nutrient-rich “AOIs’ and over-seeding them for improving soil health in vulnerable areas of the pasture. Where we had a severe drought (4 of the 10 pastures), the strategic-rotational pastures required significantly less hay (average of 17 bales), as compared to the conventional pastures (average 45 bales). Additionally, NDVI images created from Sentinel2 satellite data indicated higher forage biomass in the strategic-rotational pastures, mostly due to the contribution from over-seeded exclusions. While it is still early stage of our research, strategic rotational grazing practices may rapidly improve soil health and forage productivity in Georgia Southern Piedmont pastures.