Get reliable science

�Soil degradation is a critical issue in agriculture, and restoration is necessary to reach global food security and production goals. There has been substantial debate over the merits or drawbacks of high-intensity, short-duration grazing versus low-intensity, continuous grazing. In addition, scientific literature presents conflicting information on the effect of animal impact on microbial biomass, diversity, and function. Though soil microorganisms are known to be important in all ecosystems for driving the critical processes of carbon and nutrient cycling, only recently soil biodiversity has been recognized as an important parameter of quantifying soil health, for a variety of environmental, agricultural and human health benefits. Is it therefore critical to understand how agricultural systems impact soil biodiversity and the soil microbial community. This study addresses that knowledge gap by quantifying soil microbial and biogeochemical responses immediately following grazing and linking plant-soil-microbe interactions by integrating immediate changes in vegetation growth. In this study, we implemented three grazing treatments on twelve �-acre paddocks at the Laramie Agriculture Experiment Station in Laramie, Wyoming in a randomized complete block design: a high-intensity, short-duration treatment (50,000 animal lbs/acre; 12 hours grazing), low-intensity, medium-duration treatment (~3,000 animal lbs/acre; 6 days grazing), and a no-grazing control (zero grazing). Vegetation structure and soil biological parameters were quantified at four time points: 1 week before grazing, 24 hours after grazing, 1 week, and 4 weeks after grazing. A rising plate pasture meter was used to estimate vegetation structure, and was compared to traditional clipped dry matter biomass. Soil biological measurements included extracellular enzyme assays, soil microbial biomass, and soil biogeochemical measurements included dissolved organic nitrogen & carbon, pH, EC, and bulk density. These data will give valuable insight to short-term, system-level feedback that could assist producers in making management decisions on irrigated pastures.