A 3-year study was conducted to evaluate grazing strategies for production of growing cattle during summer on Northern Great Plains rangeland. Crossbred yearling steers (N = 123 per year, avg initial weight = 275 kg) were allotted to 1 of 2 treatments replicated in 3 pastures. Treatments were season-long grazing of pastures at recommended stocking rates assuming a 4-month grazing period or intensive-early grazing of pastures stocked at the same rate assuming only a 2-month grazing season. Precipitation in 1993 was 169% of normal resulting in greater forage quality than in other years and no differences were observed in weight gains between treatments during 1993. In 1994 and 1995, steers in the intensive-early stocked pastures gained less weight during the 2 months of grazing than did those in the season-long stocked pastures; however, gain per hectare was greater in the intensive-early stocked pastures. Intensive-early stocking with growing steers may be a viable means to overcome limited forage quality during late summer in the Northern Great Plains and to maximize forage utilization in years of abundant forage. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020
Scholarly peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol. 1, 1948 up to 5 years from the current year. Formerly Journal of Range Management (JRM). More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.