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Estimates of forage production for long-term ungrazed, lightly, moderately, and heavily grazed treatments (0, 20, 40, 60% removal of annual forage production) established in 1939 in shortgrass steppe communities were subjected to multiple regression analyses to assess long-term temporal trends resulting from grazing and short-term sensitivities to abiotic factors. Average production based upon all data from 1939-1990 was 75, 71, 68, and 57 g m-2 yr-1 for ungrazed, lightly, moderately, and heavily grazed treatments, respectively. Variability in forage production was explained mostly by cool-season precipitation, and magnitude of forage production was more sensitive to annual fluctuations in precipitation than to long-term grazing treatments. Production per unit increase of precipitation was greater for cool-season than warm-season precipitation, but only when cool-season precipitation was above average. This was attributed to differences in evaporative demand of the atmosphere resulting in different utilization-efficiencies of small and large rainfall events in the 2 seasons. Based upon a regression model constructed using data from 1939 through 1962, forage production was not affected by grazing to 20 to 35% removal. For pastures of average relative productivity, grazing at 60% level of consumption for 25 years resulted in a 3% decrease in forage production in wet years and a 12% decrease in dry years. Estimates of productivity after 50 years of heavy compared to light grazing treatment were -5 and -18% for wet and average y precipitation, respectively. This material was digitized as part of a cooperative project between the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. 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