Excerpt
The pastures and haylands of the United States have substantial potential to contribute to national goals for sustainably increasing food production (Nelson 2012). Realizing this potential will require technologies and management strategies that are tailored to the agroecosystems of the region, are economically viable, enhance the environment, and are sufficiently flexible to adapt to climate change. Forage production is the foundation for pasture-based dairy and livestock production, including low input and organic systems, and contributes to confined animal feeding operations through hay production. Pastures often include a diverse mixture of numerous forage species, the identities of which depend on complex interactions between soil, climate, landscape, and management (Goslee and Sanderson 2010). Plant species composition affects not only plant productivity and length of grazing season, but also animal intake, production, and greenhouse gas emissions. An applied understanding of these complex relationships is lacking in current pasture classifications, even though an ecologically based framework is needed to support management practices that sustain biological integrity and enhance plant and animal productivity while minimizing adverse environmental impacts (Sanderson et al. 2011).
Effective ecosystem management requires that we simplify the complex natural world enough that we can understand how to manage it while at the…
- © 2014 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
