Cattle Grazing Management May Help Capture, Store Carbon In Soil

Researchers at the Arizona State University are banding together to explore whether ranching management can create robust soils, watersheds and wildlife habitat while sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide. "By using measures -- such as the carbon stored, the water absorbed and retained, populations of fungi, bacteria, wild life and insects, and rancher and animal well-being -- we are comparing adaptive grazing with conventional grazing to see if the former actually improves ranch ecosystems," Peter Byck, professor of practice at the School of Sustainability, said in a statement. "We hope to study and compare 36 ranches located in four diverse eco-regions across the U.S. and southern Canada." According to Byck, the idea for the project came from researching Soil Carbon Cowboys, a short Carbon Nation 2.0 film made in collaboration with ASU. His feature documentary, 2011's Carbon Nation, focuses on climate change solutions. "While filming Soil Carbon Cowboys, we came across ranchers who were adopting healthier grazing practices to rejuvenate their land and their livestock," Byck said. "What they did not know is that they were helping capture a significant amount of carbon dioxide from the air." The anecdotal evidence led to curiosity regarding the effectiveness of adaptive grazing. Byck and a team of leading soil, livestock, biodiversity and communications specialists have decided to investigate the following question: What is the best rangeland management technique for significantly sequestering carbon in rangeland soils and improving rangeland socio-ecological systems? While individual members of the team concentrate on aspects and impacts of various grazing techniques, Byck's focus is to discover whether the methods store carbon in the soil, and if so, which is the most successful. Previous research led by Richard Teague at Texas A&M University shows that ranches practicing AMP grazing sequestered an additional 30 tons of carbon per hectare over 10 years compared to conventionally grazed ranches. Although sparse, the prior pool of studies on the topic provides a solid framework upon which Byck and team hope to build...more