(resend) 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.
