Challenges, Opportunities, and Applications of Grazing Research

Grazing experiments provide fundamental information on the biology of grassland ecosystems, enable selection of persistent forage cultivars that support animal production, and develop management guidelines for end users. Challenges to proper conduct of grazing research include achieving meaningful time and spatial scales, difficulty in measurement of key variables, and scarcity of research funding. Opportunities are emerging for grazing research as a result of increasing awareness of grassland multifunctionality, ecosystem services, and environmental impacts. Capitalizing on these opportunities will require increased participation in grazing research by collaborators from a broader range of ecosystem sciences. This facilitates answering traditional production questions while concurrently discovering new knowledge regarding the larger grassland agroecosystem. Application of grazing research implies adoption by clientele and achieving real-world impacts. Targeting technology and products to specific clientele and achieving on-farm participation by change agents within the target audience can provide highly visible pilot studies that attract users to new technologies. The future of grazing research is not assured, but opportunities are emerging for scientists who engage collaborators representing a broader range of ecosystem sciences and who effectively develop and communicate their program outputs to clientele leading to adoption and measurable impacts.