With changing climate patterns, short term monitoring tools that help inform adaptive management are required. The Grazing Response Index (GRI), developed in Colorado, USA, is a tool that helps range managers evaluate the effects of grazing in a current year and use this to plan their management for the following year. It focuses on three main factors of plant response to grazing: frequency, intensity and opportunity to grow or regrow. Each factor is scored by ranking it in a category. This study applied the GRI categories for intensity and frequency to the dominant grass species of three main plant communities in the southern interior of British Columbia. In the field 75 plants of each bluebunch wheatgrass (Psuedoroegneria spicata), rough fescue (Festuca campestris), and pinegrass (Calamagrotis rubescens) were manipulated with respect to frequency and intensity. Low frequency was a one-time clipping while high frequency was three clippings each one week apart. Low intensity was the removal of 40 percent photosynthetic material by clipping while high intensity had 70 percent removal.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.