Abstract
Grazed lands have an increased risk of soil erosion during drought with the loss of soil nutrients impacting on future productivity. Overgrazing may also cause pasture decline and weed invasion, further reducing productivity. A groundcover threshold of 70% is recommended to minimise erosion and maintain pasture persistence in temperate regions, with a 50% threshold for rangelands. This study aimed to compare the delay in recovery of groundcover due to grazing to lower thresholds.
The GrazPlan software GrassGro was used to simulate grazing of annual or perennial pastures at five locations across the southern New South Wales Local Land Services area: Wagga Wagga, Temora, Orange, Yass and Hillston through the 2002, 2006 and 2018 drought periods. Sheep were either grazed throughout the droughts or were removed and fed in a feedlot when groundcover reached 90, 70, 50 and 30%, and were not returned to pasture. Annual pastures were simulated at each location, but a perennial pasture was only tested at Wagga Wagga as the persistence of the perennial pasture was not reduced by overgrazing, so was considered inaccurate.
The GrazPlan software GrassGro was used to simulate grazing of annual or perennial pastures at five locations across the southern New South Wales Local Land Services area: Wagga Wagga, Temora, Orange, Yass and Hillston through the 2002, 2006 and 2018 drought periods. Sheep were either grazed throughout the droughts or were removed and fed in a feedlot when groundcover reached 90, 70, 50 and 30%, and were not returned to pasture. Annual pastures were simulated at each location, but a perennial pasture was only tested at Wagga Wagga as the persistence of the perennial pasture was not reduced by overgrazing, so was considered inaccurate.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | Wagga Wagga, NSW |
| Publisher | Charles Sturt University |
| Commissioning body | NSW Local Land Services |
| Number of pages | 39 |
| Publication status | Published - 13 Mar 2023 |
