Vegetation and Soil Responses to Cattle Grazing Systems in the Texas Rolling Plains

Abstract

The influence of cattle grazing on selected vegetation and soil parameters were evaluated on a clay flat range site with shrub zonal, midgrass, and shortgrass communities in the Rolling Plains near Throckmorton, Texas. Measurements were made on one pasture of each treatment during 1977 following 4 to 20 years of grazing treatments. Heavy, continuous cattle grazing had more area occupied by the shortgrass community than midgrass community. Heavily grazed pastures were generally dominated by the shortgrass community, with midgrasses, depending on the degree of utilization, restricted to the shrub zonal community. Conversely, cattle exclosures had no shortgrass community, and deferred-rotation and moderately stocked continuously grazed systems had much midgrass community with the shortgrass community occupying only 30% of the area, thus increasing range productivity. Vegetation and soil parameters within the high intensity, low frequency and heavily stocked, continuously grazed pastures tended to be similar for the midgrass and shortgrass communities, but the shrub zonal community was generally different. Vegetation and soil parameters in the midgrass community of the moderately stocked, continuously grazed treatment were generally similar to shrub zonal and different from shortgrass communities. Vegetation and soil variables in the exclosures and deferred-rotation treatments were generally similar among the midgrass and shrub zonal communities; however, they differed from the shortgrass communities.