Cattle grazing tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) often develop fescue toxicosis. This condition is thought to be caused by ergot alkaloids produced by the endophyte Neotyphodium coenophialum. Endophytes from wild tall fescue plants, which do not produce ergot alkaloids, were transferred into the endophyte-free tall fescue germplasm, HiMag. The novel associations also lacked the ability ...

Heifer rearing is one of the largest production expenses for dairy cattle operations, which is one reason milking operations outsource heifer rearing to custom developers. The cost of harvested feedstuffs is a major expense in heifer rearing. A possible way to lower feed costs is to graze dairy heifers, but little research exists on this topic in the mid-south United States. The objectives of t...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of different grazing pressures on the activity and diversity of soil bacteria. We performed a long-term experiment in Eldorado do Sul, southern Brazil, that assessed three levels of grazing pressure: high pressure (HP), with 4% herbage allowance (HA), moderate pressure (MP), with 12% HA, and low pressure (LP), with 16% HA. Two reference areas wer...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form symbiotic associations with most plant species in terrestrial ecosystems, and are affected by environmental variations. To reveal the impact of disturbance on an AM fungal community under future global warming, we examined the abundance and community composition of AM fungi in both soil and mixed roots in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Ch...

Many benefits have been obtained from rotational grazing, including management flexibility and livestock distribution, but long-term positive effects on plant and animal production have been inconsistent. The purpose of this case study was to investigate nutrient intake of animals in 2 production scale graxing treatments. The study site was the Texas Experimental Ranch located in Throckmorton C...

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of pregrazing pasture herbage mass (HM) on CH4 emissions, ruminal fermentation, and ADG of grazing beef heifers at 2 stages of the grazing season. Thirty Limousin cross heifers were allocated to 1 of 2 target pregrazing HM treatments [a low HM (LHM) or high HM (HHM) treatment] for 126 d in a randomized block design experiment. Pasture herb...

Plants show phenological responses to herbivory. Some enclosure experiments have demonstrated that the onset of the peak flowering season is dependent on grazing pressure. We constructed a mathematical model using Pontryargin's maximum principle to investigate changes in flowering time by examining shifts in resource allocation from vegetative to reproductive plant components. We represented a ...

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effect of growth rate to similar age or BW on fat deposition in stocker cattle grazing dormant native range (DNR) or winter wheat pasture (WP). In each experiment, fall-weaned Angus steers were randomly allotted to 1 of 4 stocker production programs: 1) control, 1.02 kg/d of a 40% CP cottonseed meal-based supplement during grazing of DNR (CON); 2) c...

The creation of improved areas is one way of increasing the productivity of livestock on Cantabrian heathland (NW Spain), a habitat that is frequently located in less favourable mountainous areas where the development of sustainable husbandry is limited. The effect of this on the biodiversity of heathland is unclear and likely to depend on several factors, such as the grazing regime. In order t...