The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service has a new publication available to help landowners monitor and manage the health of their native rangeland and pastures. The publication, "Native Grassland Monitoring and Management," is focused on landowners in the Trinity River basin, but techniques described are applicable across the state.
What is monitoring, exactly?
Monitoring specifically examines the plant species present and how much area they cover. Monitoring the ecological site condition, or health of the land, is necessary for landowners to evaluate how past land management decisions are affecting the plant, soil and water resources of the landscape. Being able to see how range conditions change over time, which is also known as range trend, will allow land managers to make the best management decisions as conditions change.
The main goal of the publication is to connect land monitoring and management techniques with proper watershed protection, because they are one and the same. Well-managed native grasslands and tame pastures are important to watershed protection as they increase the water storage capacity of the soil, reduce erosion, promote groundwater recharge and provide more efficient nutrient absorption. Landowners also benefit from increased forage production and quality wildlife habitat.
The monitoring techniques covered in the publication include photo points, grazing exclosures, nest and cover surveys, grass stubble height surveys and forage clipping surveys. Management techniques covered include chemical and mechanical treatments, prescribed burning, disking, shredding and grazing.
To order a hard copy, visit the AgriLife Bookstore, or view and download a pdf below. In addition, you can see these techniques demonstrated in our Rangeland Monitoring Techniques and Measurement Techniques videos on our YouTube channel.