Theme 5-2: Drought Management and Climate Change--Poster Sessions
Description
In Uruguay, rangeland cattle production systems support national economy by beef exportation chain and economic inputs to the country. Soil hydric stress episodes results to forage crisis on grassland-based production systems, having high impact on its trajectory and leaving sequels at several farm levels mainly on rearing cattle systems in drought sensitive regions of the country. In that context, the proposal is to create a spring forage stash module, with a simple management rules as a mechanism to build stability to farms and to buffering drought impact. The concept is to differ spring forage (season with low variation coefficient on net primary production) to summer (season with high variation and susceptible to drought stress episodes). This forage stash module is actually started to be implemented in some monitored farms nevertheless, the use of simulation models can project some concrete result generating future possible evolutions for the system. A predator-prey model for extensive livestock systems -called PPGL- was set to understand the impact of that spring forage stash module on animal securing parameter, expressed as the proportion of adult rearing cows maintaining liveweight at summer grazing on a drought scenario. Results suggest that the stashing 10% of the farm surface can save approximatively 70% of rearing cows, even for drought episodes on closing time or in the summer grazing period. Additionally, a linear direct effect was observed between stashing surface on proportion of rearing cows secured. The resulting carrying capacity of the stash forage module is about 800 to 850 kg liveweight / ha on the grazing period, supporting high grazing pressure. Considering those results, the inclusion of a spring forage stash module is a promising tool to generate more resilient livestock production systems.
Included in
Spring Forage Stash Module to Prevent Forage Crisis on Uruguayan Livestock Systems: An Evaluation Based on Model Simulations
In Uruguay, rangeland cattle production systems support national economy by beef exportation chain and economic inputs to the country. Soil hydric stress episodes results to forage crisis on grassland-based production systems, having high impact on its trajectory and leaving sequels at several farm levels mainly on rearing cattle systems in drought sensitive regions of the country. In that context, the proposal is to create a spring forage stash module, with a simple management rules as a mechanism to build stability to farms and to buffering drought impact. The concept is to differ spring forage (season with low variation coefficient on net primary production) to summer (season with high variation and susceptible to drought stress episodes). This forage stash module is actually started to be implemented in some monitored farms nevertheless, the use of simulation models can project some concrete result generating future possible evolutions for the system. A predator-prey model for extensive livestock systems -called PPGL- was set to understand the impact of that spring forage stash module on animal securing parameter, expressed as the proportion of adult rearing cows maintaining liveweight at summer grazing on a drought scenario. Results suggest that the stashing 10% of the farm surface can save approximatively 70% of rearing cows, even for drought episodes on closing time or in the summer grazing period. Additionally, a linear direct effect was observed between stashing surface on proportion of rearing cows secured. The resulting carrying capacity of the stash forage module is about 800 to 850 kg liveweight / ha on the grazing period, supporting high grazing pressure. Considering those results, the inclusion of a spring forage stash module is a promising tool to generate more resilient livestock production systems.
