Response of Grazing Land Soil Health to Management Strategies: A Summary Review

Sutie Xu, Sindhu Jagadamma and Jason Rowntree
Additional contact information
Sutie Xu: Department of Biosystems Engineering & Soil Science, University of Tennessee, 2506 E J Chapman Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
Sindhu Jagadamma: Department of Biosystems Engineering & Soil Science, University of Tennessee, 2506 E J Chapman Drive, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
Jason Rowntree: Department of Animal Science, Michigan State University, 474 S. Shaw Lane, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-26

Abstract: Grazing land ecosystem services including food provision and climate regulation are greatly influenced by soil health. This paper provides a condensed review of studies on the response of three important soil properties related to soil health to grazing land management: water infiltration, carbon (C) sequestration, and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). Impacts of management strategies that are often used in grazing lands are discussed in this review including vegetation composition, grazing methods, and other factors such as fertilizer use and climatic conditions. In general, proper grazing management such as continuous moderate grazing and rotational/deferred-rotational grazing with low or moderate stocking rates tends to benefit all three soil properties. Water infiltration can usually be increased with full vegetation cover, increased soil C, and aggregate stability, or be decreased with greater soil bulk density. Adoption of highly productive plant species with faster turnover rates can promote soil C sequestration by increasing C input. However, excessive C removal from ecosystems due to overgrazing or improper soil fertilization management results in higher C loss, which can have detrimental effects on soil C sequestration. Proper stocking rate and a balanced manure/fertilizer management was found to be critical for enhancing NUE. Grazing land management sometimes simultaneously influence the three soil properties. Techniques that can increase soil C such as introduction of high productive plant species can often promote water infiltration and soil nitrogen (N). Some other practices such as adoption of N fertilizer may enhance C sequestration while being detrimental to NUE. An integrated management plan for a specific location or farm should be considered carefully to improve soil health as well as ecosystem production. This review provides farmers and policy makers the current state of general knowledge on how health-related soil processes are affected by grazing land management.

Keywords: carbon sequestration; water infiltration; nitrogen use efficiency; grazing land management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/12/4769/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/12/4769/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:12:p:4769-:d:190463

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().