A century of grazing: The value of long-term research

Excerpt

Long-term research is critical to understanding the sustainability of agroecosystems. This is especially true for rangelands in an era of extreme weather, climate change, and land use change. Since its inception in 1912, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory (NGPRL) at Mandan, North Dakota, has focused on the ecology, management, and sustainability of native rangeland. A century ago, Johnson Thatcher Sarvis and a small group of scientists at the NGPRL set out to answer a very practical question: how many acres of native prairie does it take to support a steer during the grazing season? To answer that question they began a stocking rate study in 1915 on 101 ha (250 ac) of native mixed-grass prairie. Part of that original experiment continues today as one of the longest running grazing experiments in North America. Scientific accomplishments from the long-term research have been summarized recently (Sanderson et al. 2015). Here we describe how the long-term research site is being leveraged for the future.