‘Rotatinuous’ stocking as a climate-smart grazing management strategy for sheep production
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Climate change has important consequences for global agriculture production (Lipper et al., 2014). Extreme weather events, water shortages, land degradation, the disruption of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity can be expected (FAO, 2016) while agriculture systems can be significant drivers of climate change (Springmann et al., 2018).
Livestock holds the largest share in agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mainly because of CH4 emissions from enteric fermentation of ruminants (Gerber et al., 2013; Herrero et al., 2016). At the same time, livestock products largely contribute to human feeding (Gaughan et al., 2019), which in turn is increasing (FAO, 2017) with projection around 9.8 billion people by 2050. This scenario will drive greater demand for animal protein (Eisler et al., 2014) and could increase global CH4 emissions from livestock (IPCC, 2014). Considering that most ruminants in the world are raised in pasture-based or mixed systems, a strong emphasis must be oriented in understanding how grazing practices can impact GHG emissions, food production, biodiversity, carbon sequestration in the soils (Godde et al., 2018) and animal welfare (Llonch et al., 2017). Therefore, the challenge is developing strategies to reduce livestock's carbon footprint while increasing food production (Godfray et al., 2010).
Climate-smart approaches are proposed to achieve these goals under a global climate change scenario (Lipper et al., 2014). Henry et al. (2018) pointed out that some of the negative consequences of ruminant livestock production can be mitigated through adaptive management with improvements in animal nutrition. Many studies regarding grazing management strategies to mitigate GHG emission focus on the plant component and its ability to store carbon in the soil (Smith, 2014; Henderson et al., 2015; de la Motte et al., 2018). However, sustainable food production must also consider the ability of the animal to perform well in the grazed environment. Hence, climate-smart grazing practices should aim to maintain production levels with a reduced herd size (Herrero et al., 2016), which is possible with well-managed pastures under moderate grazing intensity (Souza Filho et al., 2019; Kunrath et al., 2020).
Thus, an innovative grazing management strategy would conciliate the trade-off of producing more animal products with fewer animals. One way to this appease was proposed by Carvalho (2013). The grazing management called ‘Rotatinuous’ stocking is based on optimum sward structure aiming to minimize the time required to achieve animals' requirements at grazing (Carvalho, 2013). It results in lower stocking rates and moderate grazing intensities, as well as greater herbage intake (i.e. animal performance) and short resting periods because of greater post-grazing sward mass. This is the opposite of the traditional rotational grazing management oriented to maximize plant growth and forage utilization efficiency by animals. In this way, Savian et al. (2018) applied ‘Rotatinuous’ stocking and reported increased in herbage intake and decreased in CH4 emissions by grazing sheep by 1.6 times per area and 2.7 times per kg of live weight (LW) gain. Similarly, Souza Filho et al. (2019)) working with temperate black-oat and Italian ryegrass mixed pastures in southern Brazil found greater animal LW gain with lower CH4 intensity (g CH4/kg LW gain).
Therefore, we hypothesized that the ‘Rotatinuous’ stocking (RN) aiming to maximize herbage intake per unit of time through offering the best sward structure results in greater carcass production, commercial cuts, meat quality and lower diet cost, carcass CH4 intensity and yield of lambs grazing Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) pastures than the conventional rotational stocking (RT).
Section snippets
Site, design and treatments
The experiment was conducted in two stocking seasons (2014 and 2015) at the Agronomic Experimental Station (EEA) of the UFRGS in Eldorado do Sul city, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (30°05′S, 51°39′W). The climate in the region is subtropical humid with the 14-year (2003–2016) mean air temperature and total rainfall (May to October) of 15.8 °C and 931 mm, respectively (EEA–UFRGS). The soil of the experimental site was classified as a Typic Paleudult with 17.5% clay, 20% silt and 62.5% sand.
Herbage characteristics
Table 1 shows the diet cots and the pre- and post-grazing sward heights according to the target proposed to this study as described by Savian et al. (2018). Diet cost per kg of DM (p = 0.001) and per hectare (p < 0.001) were lower for RN than for RT treatment. Daily diet cost per lamb was US$ 0.025 and did not differ (p = 0.461) between the treatments.
Conformation of lambs and their carcasses
Feed intake and efficiency, and carcass characteristics of lambs are shown in Table 2. The greater (p < 0.001) herbage intake per hectare for RT
Discussion
This study shows that within rotational grazing management practices, adjusting pre- and post-grazing sward height either to maximize total forage accumulation and harvest efficiency (RT) or the herbage intake per unit of time by lambs (RN), has important consequences on carcass production and quality, diet cost, CH4 intensity and yield. In the ‘Rotatinuous’ stocking scheme, lambs reached greater final LW and carcass weight (Table 3), increased production of carcass and edible food and protein
Conclusions
Our study shows that grazing management termed ‘Rotatinuous’ stocking results in a greater carcass, edible food and crude protein production, feed efficiency, better carcass quality, and lower CH4 intensity and yield of lambs grazing Italian ryegrass pastures. Therefore, this sward management strategy is a win-win solution for environmental health allowing high animal production and high mitigation of GHGs for grazing systems, that is, it is possible to reduce CH4 intensity (g/kg carcass,
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jean Víctor Savian: conceptualization, methodology, field data collection, formal analysis, writing original draft, and writing and editing; Radael Marinho Tres Schons: field data collection, visualization, writing; William de Souza Filho: writing, review, editing; Angel Sánchez Zubieta: writing, review; Liris Kindlein: laboratory analysis, review; Jérôme Bindelle: writing, review; Cimélio Bayer: supervision, review; Carolina Bremm: review; Paulo César de Faccio Carvalho: investigation,
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Augusto Caetano, Emanuel Schneider, João Penso, Gentil da Silva Neto, Daniele Marchi, Jean Mezzalira and Alexandre Berndt for their valuable contributions to this work. Thanks also to Thainá Freitas for carrying out the graphical abstract. This study was financed in part by the ‘Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Brasil (CAPES)’ and Project ‘Universal-CNPq n° 481941/2013-4’. This work was part of the PhD thesis of the first author.
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