Forages and Pastures: Grazing Management

Abstract

Development of an effective grazing management system depends on understanding the needs of the pasture and the animals grazing the pasture. The systems adopted can vary from continuous or set -stocked grazing, at one extreme, to very small allocations of pasture through strip grazing, at the other extreme.

At the correct stocking rate, animals set set-stocked create their own grazing interval, ie that is, cows do not like to come back to the same plant for at least 11 days, but there is no rationing of feed and therefore seasonal variations in pasture availability become extreme. The most logical system is a controlled grazing one system based on leaf maturity with the indicator of leaf maturity in the field being the number of leaves/ per tiller, in from the knowledge that there are a certain number of leaves/ per tiller produced before the oldest leaf begins to senesce. If the plant is grazed much earlier than this stage, the water -soluble carbohydrate reserveshave not been replenished and subsequent regowth is slow. At a longer grazing interval, the senescent leaves reduce both the forage quality and the palatability.