Facilitating Grazing Partnerships on Wisconsin’s Public Grasslands: Assessing Plant Communities and Developing Best Practices

Plant and soil survey: Analyses of the plant and soil survey is ongoing, as we work to relate field measurements vegetation and soils with hyperspectral images to map plant species and forage quality on the grazing sites.

“Successful” grazing interviews: Central to the discussions at each of the five interviews was the idea of success: defining successful grazing for wildlife and vegetation, explaining what successful public-private partnership looked like, and what barriers to success might be on a short-and long-term basis. Though the pilot projects began under the premise of exploring a ‘win-win’ management scenario to support grassland management and grazing land access, the view of a ‘win-win’ scenario has increased in complexity over the course of implementation. As the pilot projects develop, we predict that graziers, land managers, and researchers will continue to expand their original vegetation and wildlife goals for grazing, and as such, the project practices should be constantly examined to assess their utility for meeting those goals. This report will discuss three themes that emerged as definitions of success, and current practices and activities to address them: versatile land management, cost-effectiveness, and community connections and change (Table 1).

Table 1. Summary of definitions of success for pilot grazing project partnerships, on both large and small scales. Knowledge increases from academic research and practitioner experiences are implicitly included in every category listed.

Versatile habitat and farm management: Though the ecological priorities of grazing have been at the forefront of this grazing research partnership, the discussion about how those ecological goals will be achieved has evolved over the course of the pilot projects. Increasing diversity of native vegetation, reducing woody and invasive species, and improving open habitat and structural diversity for grassland birds were consistent ecological goals across all grazing sites. The adaptability versatility of rotational grazing was also a frequent discussion topic throughout the interviews, that cattle could access areas that were not easily reachable by mowing or impractical for controlled burning or herbicide applications. While grazing is still subject to changes in weather or personnel, land managers interviewed explained that it is not as sensitive to timing as burning, nor does it pose the equipment challenges that mowing does. For their part, the vegetation and ecological goals of graziers still revolved around improving forage for their cattle over the course of the pilot projects, reducing shrubs and encouraging herbaceous growth and higher forage quality. Both groups expressed commitment to the learning process, looking at how the wildlife habitat changed and improved under grazing and how cattle responded to new vegetation conditions.

Cost-effectiveness: The emphasis on the cost-effectiveness of grazing management increased substantially from the initial site visits to the first grazing season. Though for the most part the WDNR personnel did not feel the grazing partnerships needed to generate income for the agency through rental fees, there was significant discussion around the ‘savings’ of grazing as a management tool. Reducing agency inputs including time, personnel, herbicides and equipment rentals were at the forefront of WDNR justifications for the grazing partnership. Balancing these savings with the cost of upfront investment and installation of fencing, water, and signage meant that land managers frequently clarified that grazing was not necessarily a money-making management scheme, but a money-saving one. Most graziers maintained that the partnership had to continue to be safe and profitable for their businesses. Cattle for the most part seemed to be achieving their target weight gains on the forage available, but grazier interest and investment of time for checking equipment and rotating the herds was, unsurprisingly, contingent on the health and safety of their cattle.

Both land managers and graziers expressed commitment to learning and interest in innovation and ongoing improvements to make the partnership more cost-effective. Graziers suggested mowing and haying in combination with grazing wherever possible to encourage herbaceous vegetation. There was frequent discussion and speculation about trials with multi-species grazing, using combinations of goats, cattle, horses, or sheep to target different vegetation issues. Both groups also expressed the possibility of subleasing grazing contracts to increase stocking densities on sites where cattle were not damaging shrub species and get other graziers involved on the landscape.

Community connection and change: The third theme to emerge from discussions around successful management was a social one: using grazing management and research partnerships as a way for both graziers and land managers to connect with their communities and positively change public perceptions. From the land managers’ standpoint, grazing was a way to change public opinion of the WDNR as ‘rule-enforcers,’ out-of-touch with the needs and interests of production and conservation in the community. Many explained that grazing demonstrated active management on the landscape, as a way to build trust and interest in conservation with the agricultural community who otherwise see public access grasslands as ‘wastelands.’ Graziers explained that the partnership could be a way to increase public knowledge and support about rotational grazing, moving away from the perception of all grazing as continuous overgrazing with negative ecological impacts. Some even saw the partnership as a way to add value to products, building conservation and the history of grassland grazing into their branding of beef and dairy products.

On a statewide and long-term scale, land managers explained that grazing partnerships could be a way to increase support for grasslands culturally, building interest within the agency and across both private and public lands. While both groups mentioned the opportunity of resting private pasture during periods of grazing on public land, some land managers suggested that these partnerships could be a way to encourage stewardship at home. They expressed hope that taking parcels of private land out of grazing rotation could benefit patch-sensitive wildlife, specifically grassland birds that could use the growth of home pasture as surrogate grassland, ultimately building improved wildlife corridors on a regional scale. They hoped to build interest in grasslands enough to justify agency positions for grassland ecologists and grazing specialists, to further build the knowledge and application of new management techniques in the upper Midwest. Land managers seemed to consider a partnership with the university and private graziers as a step toward more innovative practices by the agency in general, a way to shift institutional momentum away from traditional practices and more toward multifunctional land use and conservation.