Adapting to climative extremes: Do grazing management strategies matter?

Authors: Schantz, Merilynn; Smith, Douglas; Adhikari, Kabindra; OSORIO, LEYTON JAVIER - Texas A&M Agrilife; TOLLESON, DOUGLAS - Texas A&M Agrilife; GOODWIN, JEFFERY - Texas A&M University Institute For Advancing Health Through Agriculture; Thorp, Kelly; Harmel, Robert

Submitted to: Rangeland Ecology and Management
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/30/2025
Publication Date: 8/31/2025
Citation: Schantz, M.C., Smith, D.R., Adhikari, K., Osorio, L.M., Tolleson, D.R., Goodwin, J.J., Thorp, K.R., Harmel, R.D. 2025. Adapting to climative extremes: Do grazing management strategies matter?. Rangeland Ecology and Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2025.07.016.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2025.07.016

Interpretive Summary: Grazing strategies like rotational or continuous grazing directly affect plant production and animal performance. How these grazing strategies affect plant and animal performance during climactic extremes is, however, unknown as it requires long-term studies that occur across common land management (large) spatial scales. Dynamic precipitation patterns across years are common in central Texas, which provides a unique environment to test the effects of adaptive grazing land management. The objective of this study was to compare plant production and animal nutrition among alternative adaptive grazing land management strategies of rotationally grazed pastures and forage cover crops to prevailing methods of continuous year-long pasture and cultivated grazed forage oats grazing across a 10-year period in central Texas. The results suggested that rotational grazing with supplemental warm- and cool-season cover crops resulted in greater plant production, especially during drought, compared to continuous grazing with cool-season supplemental grazing of forage oats. Animal nutrition was, alternatively, inconclusive. Collectively, these results suggest that alternative grazing strategies are more resilient to climatic extremes like drought.

Technical Abstract: Frequent and extreme disturbances from climate change have increased the need for improved grazing land management strategies that can ameliorate these disturbances. One strategy is rotational grazing which can increase plant production and animal performance when compared to continuous grazing across most semi-humid to humid grazing lands. How these grazing strategies affect plant and animal performance during climactic extremes is, however, unknown as it requires long-term studies that occur across common land management (large) spatial scales. Dynamic precipitation patterns across years are common in central Texas, which provides a unique environment to test the effects of adaptive grazing land management. The objective of this study was to compare plant production and animal nutrition among alternative adaptive grazing land management strategies of rotationally grazed pastures and forage cover crops to prevailing methods of continuous year-long pasture and cultivated grazed forage oats grazing across a 10-year period in central Texas. The results suggested that rotational grazing with supplemental warm- and cool-season cover crops resulted in greater plant production, especially during drought, compared to continuous grazing with cool-season supplemental grazing of forage oats. Animal nutrition was, alternatively, inconclusive as fecal crude protein in cattle, predicted via fecal near-infrared spectroscopy, was greater when animals grazed the prevailing treatment of forage oats and continuously grazed pastures while the ratio of digestible organic matter to crude protein was greater when cattle grazed the alternative treatment of rotational and cover crop pastures. Collectively, these results suggest that alternative grazing strategies are more resilient to climatic extremes like drought.