Get reliable science

Sustainable livestock production is dependent on reliable forage resources that maintain animal health and fecundity. Temporal and spatial variation in forage production in most range systems is closely linked to the timing and amount of precipitation. Livestock producers often make grazing management decisions based on their knowledge of past or average forage production levels with little certainty that sufficient precipitation will fall in time to produce what is anticipated. The cumulative effects of inaccurate grazing management decisions are loss in soil fertility, increased rates of soil erosion, and establishment of weeds. Research has linked global precipitation patterns with the occurrence of grass, shrub, and forested lands and provided regression functions relating Aboveground Net Primary Production (ANPP) with Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP). These tools are sometimes used to understand the impacts of drought on forage production for a given land unit. However, these globally derived functions are of limited use for making management decisions as they cannot account for temporal and spatial precipitation patterns that also influence forage production. Managers faced with difficult decisions can be more proactive with the development and use of indexes that account for locally derived variations in precipitation and primary production. This presentation will highlight the research and development of the Hawaii Rainfall and Forage Production Index that is used for forecasting forage production and suitable stocking rates, drought planning and mitigation, and development of prescribed grazing standards.