The effects of grazing during, or during and after, the season of a drought were determined for eastern Montana grasslands in this study. The results suggested that drought greatly reduced standing crop and grazing further reduced standing crop when combined with drought, however, these results did not take initial pasture characteristics into account. Analysis including the initial conditions, determined one year prior to the imposed drought and grazing treatments, revealed that the effects of drought and grazing on forage production were not as extreme as the previous analysis predicted. The authors concluded that the timing of the drought, in late May, was not appropriate to produce a response in the Montana grasslands and they strongly recommend investigating the effects of baseline data in experimental analysis as it greatly affected the results of this study.
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