Playing Softball With the Rancher

Abstract

Introduction How many times does a rancher who grazes livestock on public lands hear they can use 50% of the key herbaceous forage species? Yet, the rancher does not fully understand, or lacks familiarity with, how that would be measured or determined by the specific public land management agency. As a result, the rancher may use the grazing allotment based on the agency’s authorized period of use. At the end of the grazing season the rancher finds that there is 1 or 2 inches average stubble height remaining on the key herbaceous species and the measured utilization is 70% after the livestock are removed. The rancher is then in a position of exceeding the use level objectives. This is, in effect, a communication gap that often results in resource objectives not being fully realized in public land management. To help the rancher and the range conservationist better manage the resource and reduce the time necessary to do so, the following softball stubble height method is suggested to monitor the forage utilization. Looking at Figure 1, of the 5 Indian ricegrass plant heights, where would you graze to achieve to 50% use by weight? Using the Interagency Height–Weight method (US Department of the Interior–Bureau of Land Management 1996), if the ungrazed Indian ricegrass is 16 inches tall, then when there are 5.5 inches remaining, there is a 50% utilization level by weight. How often do we leave that much stubble height?