Ecological Sites: Can they be Managed to Promote Livestock Production?

On the Ground We assessed diet quality and livestock weight gains for shortgrass steppe pastures dominated by Loamy Plains or Sandy Plains ecological sites. When growing season precipitation is “normal,” livestock gains are higher on Sandy Plains ecological sites, and diet quality is not limiting livestock production. Conversely, when growing season precipitation declines by 20%, digestible organic matter, but not crude protein, influences livestock gains. These negative effects on livestock gains are more pronounced for the Loamy Plains ecological site. Pastures with multiple ecological sites may provide range managers greater forage diversity for livestock and higher livestock gains during dry growing seasons.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Rangelands

• Publication date

  2019-12-01

• Fields of study

  Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.rala.2019.07.003
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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