Patch Burn-Grazing to Promote Environmental Sustainability

View the project final report

• 2008 annual report
• 2009 annual report

Commodities

• Additional Plants: native plants
• Animals: bovine

Practices

• Animal Production: grazing - continuous, grazing management, range improvement, grazing - rotational
• Education and Training: demonstration, on-farm/ranch research, workshop
• Farm Business Management: budgets/cost and returns
• Natural Resources/Environment: biodiversity, habitat enhancement
• Production Systems: agroecosystems
• Sustainable Communities: partnerships, sustainability measures

Context: Highly fragmented Northern Great Plains pastures are currently managed for homogeneous forage production, increasing short-term returns but lowering long-term environmental sustainability by increasing susceptibility to invasive species and reducing critical fauna and flora habitats. Historically, fire was a key factor in maintaining grassland integrity, but its suppression during the last century has caused declines in grassland diversity. Recently, State, Federal, University, and non-profit personnel, with over 20 years of burning experience, formed the “Prairie Coteau Habitat Partnership” greatly increasing the opportunity for this project’s success. Approach: Patch burn-grazing, traditional continuous grazing, and rotational grazing treatments will be compared on 4 producer farms/ranches in eastern South Dakota from 2007-2009. An additional 2 producer sites will receive just the patch burn-grazing treatment for demonstration purposes. Vegetative diversity, forage quality and productivity, canopy structure, and selected soil parameters that influence water, nitrogen, and energy budgets will be measured. Outputs: a thesis, 2 scientific meeting abstracts, 2 journal articles, 2 extension publications, 3 Field Days, and several bus tours. Evaluation plan: site selection, grazing strategy protocols, data collection, and data summaries will be discussed annually with producers and research team. Field days followed by surveys and follow-up phone calls will be used to determine success of project adoption rates.

1. Knowledge of patch burn-graze impacts on change of plant community structure
2. Scientific community informed about vegetation change of patch burn-grazing
3. 100 ranchers informed about patch burn-grazing
4. 6 cooperators measure vegetation diversity
5. Improved diversity and structural characteristics of pastures for the 6 cooperating ranchers
6. 25 regional ranchers adopt patch burn-graze management strategies