Livestock grazing is the most prevalent use of rangelands throughout the world and has a tremendous ability to alter the amount and kind of vegetation present on rangelands. By carefully controlling the timing, intensity, and frequency of grazing and deliberately selecting a specific type of grazing animal, managers can modify the structure and composition or rangeland vegetation. Targeted grazing can be successfully integrated with other conventional vegetation management techniques that, when combined, can effectively alter the rate of change toward desirable plant communities. The combination of targeted sheep or goat grazing in conjunction with insect biological control agents has resulted in a greater suppression of invasive forbs such as leafy spurge, Dalmatian toadflax and spotted knapweed than either method alone. Similarly, targeted livestock grazing combined with a well-planned herbicide program can reduce invasive plant populations more effectively than spraying or grazing alone. Targeted livestock grazing can be integrated with prescribed fire to create fire lines, modify fire behavior and fuel loads to sculpt the landscape and reduce severity of fires to achieve specific management objectives such as brush control or brush sculpting to improve wildlife habitat. Targeted livestock grazing can be used in conjunction with re-seeding to prepare the seedbed and suppress competitive vegetation. Finally, targeted livestock grazing employed with typical livestock grazing can further alter the structure and composition of the landscape. Specific examples of integrating targeted grazing with other rangeland management techniques will be discussed.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.