It’s time to get down, get your hands dirty and take stock of, well, what you feed your stock. As discussed in the last Beef Research School, rangelands serve several purposes beyond just growing grass, and their health is a measure of five key components — species mix, nutrient cycling, site stability, water management and productivity.
That’s all well and good to say, but what does a healthy rangeland really LOOK like? And what exactly am I looking for when I’m assessing things like site stability and water management?
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Mike Alexander, with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, walks us through exactly these points in this episode of the Beef Research School. Set to a backdrop of one large site that’s been grazed in three intensities, low, medium and high, Alexander shows us exactly what you’re looking for, why some domestic species of grass can actually hurt productivity and how to gauge things like ground cover and nutrient cycling. If you have rangeland, you need to see this video.
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