TY - JOUR T1 - A century of grazing: The value of long-term research JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 5A LP - 8A DO - 10.2489/jswc.71.1.5A VL - 71 IS - 1 AU - Matt A. Sanderson AU - Mark A. Liebig AU - John R. Hendrickson AU - Scott L. Kronberg AU - David Toledo AU - Justin D. Derner AU - Justin L. Reeves Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/71/1/5A.abstract N2 - 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.CONTEXT OF THE ORIGINAL EXPERIMENT The grazing experiment began in 1915 on a native prairie that had been hayed but was never tilled, fertilized, or planted (figure 1). The original vegetation, typical of theā€¦ ER -