Linda Poole

NCAT Regenerative Grazing Specialist
According to a May, 2021 article in Civil Eats by Greta Moran, Western ranchers are restoring diverse, grassland ecosystem practices that can improve the land’s capacity to hold water—and help them hold onto more cattle.

Julie Sullivan of Colorado is quoted:
Every drop of moisture is even more precious than it used to be,” said Sullivan. “You want to do everything you can to make sure your ground is capable of absorbing water.” When the soil is healthy, full of organic matter and microbes, it will sop up water. The relationship between water and grasslands is cyclical: When more water is retained in the soil, it leads to healthier grasslands and healthier grasslands are able to build deeper, longer-lasting reserves of water.
Moran goes on to state:
Across the western United States, in the most drought-stricken regions, from the Chihuahuan Desert to the coastal grasslands of California, a scattering of small-scale ranchers are building healthier grasslands to conserve water, extending the viability of their land and business. The practices differ from ranch to ranch, but the general principle—improving the biodiversity and root system of the pastures—remains the same.
“The more you’ve allowed your grassland to invest in its roots, the better off it is going to be during a drought,” said Randy Jackson, a grassland ecologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Perennial plants—which stay in the ground year in and year out—continue to “photosynthesize and put their carbon and nutrients below ground, which is really their savings account.” In times of drought, it will draw more on the savings in the ground.
We've yet to see how this will all play out:
But even the best business and land management practices can’t make grass grow under rainless skies, and most ranchers Civil Eats spoke to are bracing for the possibility that the West may one day simply become too dry to keep ranching viable.

“If it doesn’t rain, nobody is going to get grass,” said Sullivan. “It remains to be seen what exactly climate change is going to do and how creative we’re all going to have to get.”
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Read the full article at https://civileats.com/2021/05/17/as...restoring-grasslands-to-build-water-reserves/.
 

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