Controlled grazing: Botanical response and animal performance

In chapter 15, Abaye et al. investigated the regenerative potential of pastureland in two villages through a controlled experiment with tethered grazing of small ruminants. This work builds on the Holistic Management (chapter 9) insight that animal impact is not simply a function of numbers of livestock or duration of grazing time in order to provide management indicators that optimize the potential of forage regeneration/biomass production rates, plant biodiversity, and animal performance. The chapter concludes that grazing vegetation down to a 3cm height on any particular parcel is likely to limit forage regeneration.