Achieving optimum livestock production on rangelands many times can conflict with wildlife conservation strategies that require lower stocking rates to maintain suitable habitat. Traditionally, livestock producers try to maximize gain per-acre by uniformly managing vegetation in pastures. Often this is achieved either by heavily grazing, burning the entire pasture, or both. This management strategy can create suitable habitat for some wildlife species, but poor quality habitat for others.
Patch Burning
Combining the spatial and temporal interaction of fire and grazing (patch-burning) a conservation-based approach to land management can be achieved. This practice can increase rangeland biodiversity by creating heterogeneous vegetation structure and composition that is beneficial to multiple wildlife species. However, for conservation strategies to be successfully implemented, they need to be both effective and economically sustainable. In both mixed-grass prairie and tallgrass prairie, cattle weight gain was compared in pastures with traditional fire and grazing management (continuous grazing, with periodic fire on tallgrass prairie and seasonal grazing without fire on mixed-grass prairie) and conservation based management (pyric-herbivory applied through patch burning), both at a moderate stocking rate. Stocker cattle weight gain, calf weight gain, and cow body condition score were comparable between the traditional and conservation based management at the tallgrass prairie site for the duration of the eight-year study, indicating that conservation management doesn’t decrease livestock production or profitability.
In the mixed-grass prairie pastures, stocker cattle gain was not different between traditional and conservation management for the first four years. However, stocker cattle in conservation based management out gained cattle in traditional management beginning in year five and remained 27% greater for the next six years of the study. Moreover, cattle weight gain under conservation management varied less year to year making profitability more consistent. Traditional management in mixed-grass prairie did not include fire, the process that improved range conditions and likely was associated with increased stocker cattle performance under conservation management. In conclusion, pyric-herbivory is a conservation-based rangeland management strategy that returns fire to the landscape without reduced stocking rate, deferment, or rest.
Figure 1. Cattle weight gain on traditionally managed and patch-burn managed tallgrass prairie.
Figure 2. Cattle weight gain on traditionally managed and patch-burn managed mixed-grass prairie. An * indicates years when patch-burned managed cattle gained more than traditionally managed cattle.