Hope Below Our Feet: Peer-reviewed Publications on Well-managed Grazing ...
Seth Itzkan
Listing by Year of Publication
Adaptive multi-paddock grazing increases soil carbon stocks and decreases the carbon footprint of beef production in Ontario, Canada
“Soil cores collected from AMP and CG pastures and annual row crop fields in southern Ontario showed that pastures managed with AMP grazing had significantly higher SOC stocks than CG pastures. Both pastures had SOC stocks higher than annual cropland, resulting in a sequestration rate of 0.957 Mg C ha−1 yr−1 for AMP and 0.507 Mg C ha−1 yr−1 for CG.”
Jessica Mehre, Kimberley Schneider, Susantha Jayasundara, Adam Gillespie, Claudia Wagner-Riddle, Adaptive multi-paddock grazing increases soil carbon stocks and decreases the carbon footprint of beef production in Ontario, Canada, Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 371, 2024, 123255, ISSN 0301-4797, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.123255
Ruminating on soil carbon: Applying current understanding to inform grazing management
“Among options for atmospheric CO2 removal, sequestering soil organic carbon (SOC) via improved grazing management is a rare opportunity because it is scalable across millions of globally grazed acres, low cost, and has high technical potential.”
Makes the distinction between different types of grazing management with corresponding outcomes on soil and plant biology. Offers nuance in understanding that grazing management is far more complex than just “light” or “heavy” or “presence” versus “absence” and includes considerations such as timing, intensity, duration, and frequency.
Finds that “undergrazing” can be as bad as “overgrazing.”
Finds there is an “optimal” grazing pattern that will yield the most biologically responsive outcomes, both in terms of “ecophysiological elements,” such as canopy cover and diversity, and “soil biogeochemical outcomes,” such as soil organic matter.
Breeding bird response to adaptive multi‐paddock and continuous grazing practices in Southeastern United States
“increasing the diversity and abundance of obligate grassland and ecotonal breeding birds within existing cattle-grazed landscapes in the Southeastern United States”
“improves breeding habitats on working lands for grassland birds”
“may help address the decline in species richness and populations of imperiled grassland bird communities in the southeast”
McGraw, Michael & Apfelbaum, Steven & Thompson, Ry & Wang, Fugui & Szuter, Michael & Teague, W.R. & Byck, Peter & Conser, Russ. (2024). Breeding bird response to adaptive multi‐paddock and continuous grazing practices in Southeastern United States. Ecosphere. 15. 10.1002/ecs2.70107. Link
Ecosystem management using livestock: embracing diversity and respecting ecological principles
“Well-managed animals function as an integral and productive part of agricultural systems. Among other outcomes, they can convert massive quantities of nonedible biomass (inevitably arising from pasture systems and from growing plants into human food), recycle plant nutrients back to the land, sequester carbon, improve soil health, and offer many ecosystem services.”
Logan Thompson, Jason Rowntree, Wilhelm Windisch, Sinéad M Waters, Laurence Shalloo, Pablo Manzano, Ecosystem management using livestock: embracing diversity and respecting ecological principles, Animal Frontiers, Volume 13, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 28–34, https://doi.org/10.1093/af/vfac094
Evaluating the impacts of alternative grazing management practices on soil carbon sequestration and soil health indicators
Abstract “... The objective of this study was to identify the impacts of alternative grazing management practices, including heavy continuous (HC), light continuous (LC), and adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing, on SOC and soil health indicators at the ranch and watershed scales in the Lower Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River Watershed in Northwest Texas. … The study results indicated that when grazing management at the study ranch was changed from the current AMP grazing to hypothetical HC grazing, simulated average annual SOC decreased from 84 to 81.8 Mg/ha (a 2.6% decline). At the watershed-scale, when the grazing management was changed from the baseline HC grazing to AMP grazing, the simulated average annual SOC increased from 35.6 to 38.3 Mg/ha (a 7.5% increase) … These results indicate that compared to HC, AMP grazing performed better with respect to SOC increase, and improvement of soil ecosystem and hydrological functions at both the ranch and watershed scales in the study watershed. Our findings suggest the need to shift from continuous to AMP grazing in order to improve soil health at multiple spatial scales.”
JungJin Kim, Srinivasulu Ale, Urs P. Kreuter, W. Richard Teague, Stephen J. DelGrosso, Steven L. Dowhower, Evaluating the impacts of alternative grazing management practices on soil carbon sequestration and soil health indicators, Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, Volume 342, 2023, 108234, ISSN 0167-8809, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2022.108234.
Grassland soil carbon sequestration: Current understanding, challenges, and solutions
“Grasslands store approximately one third of the global terrestrial carbon stocks and can act as an important soil carbon sink. Recent studies show that plant diversity increases soil organic carbon (SOC) storage by elevating carbon inputs to belowground biomass and promoting microbial necromass contribution to SOC storage. … Improved grazing management and biodiversity restoration can provide low-cost and/or high-carbon-gain options for natural climate solutions in global grasslands. The achievable SOC sequestration potential in global grasslands is 2.3 to 7.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year (CO2e year−1) for biodiversity restoration, 148 to 699 megatons of CO2e year−1 for improved grazing management … “
“Under moderate grazing intensity, the average SOC stock increase (28.4%) is substantially greater with rotational grazing than with continuous grazing. In the southeast United States, grassland soils managed with adaptive multi-paddock grazing that used a high-density- short-duration rotational grazing had more carbon (72.49 Mg C ha−1) and nitrogen (9.26 Mg N ha−1) stocks compared with continuous grazing (64.02 Mg C ha−1 and 8.52 Mg N ha−1) in the 0 to 100 cm soil layer … optimizing grazing intensity (e.g., rotational grazing) is projected to increase soil carbon sequestration potential by 148 to 699 megatons (Mt) CO e year−1 in global grazing lands … with the greatest SOC sequestration potential occurring in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia.”
Yongfei Bai M. Francesca Cotrufo, Grassland soil carbon sequestration: Current understanding, challenges, and solutions. Science 4 Aug 2022 Vol 377, Issue 6606 pp. 603-608 377,603-608(2022).DOI:10.1126/science.abo2380 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo2380
Henry Swayze
A great collection. Thanks for compiling them. I suspect the increase in bird abundance might sell well with the public.
I am surprised the results are not even more dramatic. I grazed 400 sheep on ideal soil, Tunbridge, in Vermont and got dramatic results. Manure distribution and drained but moist soil in a cool environment probably helped.
Henry Swayze
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