Mob Grazing Effects on Pasture Yield and Nutritive Value in Virginia.

Grass-based livestock producers are motivated to improve the nutritional value of forages through grazing, or stocking, management. Mob stocking management, known for restricting a large number of animals to a small area before being moved to new grass after a few hours to allow a long (90-day) recovery period, is hypothesized to reduce the nutritional value of forage relative to continuous and rotational grazing with lower stocking density at similar stocking rates. Clover establishment is also hypothesized to suffer under mob stocking relative to other stocking methods, which may contribute to lower forage nutritive value. However, to date, no research has quantified pasture yield and nutritive value in mob versus rotational and continuous stocking methods in Virginia. We sampled forage on a spatial grid once per month at two sites with a single replication of the stocking methods at each site to measure the response to grazing management. We found that the mob grazing treatment contained more clover than we expected. Clover establishment may partially explain why forage nutritive value did not differ between mob, rotational, and continuous stocking. At this point there is insufficient evidence to conclude that forage nutritive value in cool-season pastures in Virginia is different under mob stocking relative to continuous and rotational stocking.