Browsing by Author "Nelson, R."

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  • Analysis of productivity and soil carbon in response to time-controlled rotational grazing in the West African Sahel region
    Badini, Oumar; Stöckle, C. O.; Jones, J. W.; Nelson, R.; Keita, Moussa (2005)
    Preliminary data from Mali indicate that soil carbon levels are higher under pastures than croplands. Rotational grazing allowing biomass growth during periods (days or weeks) with no livestock grazing could result in more root and aboveground mass residues added to the soil. It is therefore hypothesized that rotational grazing will increase both soil carbon and pasture biomass production. A rotational grazing area (150 ga) was established in Torokoro, Mali (West Africa) to test this hypothesis. Because it could take many years to experimentally evaluate whether soil carbon levels are indeed increasing, a simulation-based sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate potential changes in production and soil carbon and to assess critical factors that might affect the performance of this management practice. A cropping systems model, CropSyst, was used to conduct this analysis. For this purpose, an improve soil carbon and a new rotational grazing submodel were incorporated in the model.
  • A simulation-based analysis of productivity and soil carbon in response to time-controlled rotational grazing in the West African Sahel region
    Badini, Oumar; Stöckle, C. O.; Jones, J. W.; Nelson, R.; Kodio, Amadou; Keita, Moussa (Elsevier Ltd., 2007)
    In the Sahel region of West Africa, the traditional organization of the population and the grazing land avoided overexploitation of pastures. Since independence in the 1960s, grazing lands have been opened to all without specific guidance, and the vulnerability of the pastures to degradation has increased. Rotational grazing is postulated as a possible solution to provide higher pasture productivity, higher animal loads per unit land, and perhaps improved soil carbon storage. The objective of this study was to conduct a simulation-based assessment of the impact of rotational grazing management on pasture biomass production, grazing efficiency, animal grazing requirement satisfaction, and soil carbon storage in the Madiama Commune, Mali. The results showed that grazing intensity is the primary factor influencing the productivity of annual pastures and their capacity to provide for animal grazing requirements. Rotating the animals in paddocks is a positive practice for pasture protection that showed advantage as the grazing pressure increased. Increasing the size of the reserve biomass not available for grazing, which triggers the decision of taking the animals off the field, provided better pasture protection but reduced animal grazing requirements satisfaction. In terms of soil carbon storage, all management scenarios led to reduction of soil carbon at the end of the 50-year simulation periods, ranging between 4% and 5% of the initial storage. The differences in reduction as a function of grazing intensity were of no practical significance in these soils with very low organic matter content, mostly resistant to decomposition.