ABSTRACT
Jared Smith first suggested seasonal grazing plans on rangelands in the United States, when he advocated rotation grazing as one means of improving range conditions in the southern Great Plains. A rationale for seasonal grazing is that many grasslands in the world evolved under intermittent grazing pressure from migrating herbivores, for example, bison in North America and wildebeest in East Africa. Migrations became fixed in the behavior of many species and, consequently, exerted seasonal grazing pressures to which vegetation became adapted through natural selection. Terms dealing with seasonal grazing plans have been loosely defined and irregularly used. The grazing period for a specific area is the time span of a portion of the grazing season within which grazing actually occurs. Nearly all grazing plans that have had extensive use on rangeland in North America have been called “continuous, repeated seasonal, rotation, deferred-rotation, rest-rotation,” or “short-duration grazing,” almost without regard to their actual design.
