The objective of this study was to compare an introduced warm-season perennial grass (plains bluestem, Bothriochloa ischaemum) to native tallgrass prairie for cow-calf production. Three systems were used, two based on tallgrass prairie with two different forms of protein supplementation and one based on plains bluestem as the primary forage. The systems were as follows: 1) native tallgrass prai...

In the US farmers often market pastured poultry eggs for a premium price, claiming animal and human health benefits. We examined how moving pastured hens to forage legumes or mixed grasses influenced hen (Gallus gallus L.) egg omega-3 fatty acids and concentrations of vitamins A and E. We also compared the eggs of the pastured hens to those of hens fed a commercial diet in cages. We used a cros...

A significant share of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) produced from agriculture comes from cattle farming. The reduction in GHG emissions from ruminants fed with grains has led some researchers to recommend such a diet as a means of mitigating emissions in the sector. A more accurate balance of emissions, however, must include the carbon (C) stocked by feed crops. Within the grain production system, no...

The total biomass of a tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea var. Fletcher) pasture was assessed by using a vehicle mounted light detection and ranging (LiDAR) unit to derive canopy height and an active optical reflectance sensor to determine the spectro-optical reflectance index, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). In a random plot design, measurements of NDVI and pasture height were com...

the objective of the study was to evaluate chemical composition, in vitro dry matter digestibility (ivdmd), and growth performance of weanling boer-goats supplemented with cowpea seed hulls (csh) and commercial concentrate / feed (cf) with natural pasture as basal diet. weanling boer-goats (n=36) were assigned to 3 treatments comprising of 4 animals each (2 bucklings and 2 females) replicated t...

The objectives were to analyze the dynamics of land use and cover Amazon biome over time through spatial modeling, project its future scenario with Land Change Modeler (LCM) module. This analysis was based on 1985, 2014 2017 data from MapBiomas project, which associated socioeconomic explanatory variables Cramer-V test. Results showed that Forest Formation class occupied 3,844,800.75 km2 (91.20...

Proper pasture management is important in promoting optimal forage growth and reducing runoff and nutrient loss. Pasture renovation is a management tool that improves aeration by mechanically creating holes or pockets within the soil. Pasture renovation was performed before manure application (poultry litter or swine slurry) on different pasture soils and rainfall simulations were conducted to ...

This paper focuses on the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) data availability over the 2 million km Cerrado, the Brazilian central savanna biome and one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Overall, about 2.5 million laser shots, distributed along the seven years of ICESat operation (2003–2009) and comprising three major seasonal domains,...

Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea are commonly found together in soils, yet the factors influencing their relative distribution and activity remain unclear. We examined archaeal and bacterial amoA gene distribution, and used a novel bioassay to assess archaeal and bacterial contributions to nitrification potentials in soils spanning a range of land uses (forest, pasture, ...

The movement of frugivores between remnant forests and successional areas is vital for tropical forest tree species to colonize successional habitats. The response of these species to the spatial structure of pasture tree cover is largely unknown. We studied avian frugivores that were found in primary forest edges and large pastures in eastern Amazonia, Brazil. We determined how the small-scale...