AMP is an intensive rotational grazing practice that focuses on having long rest periods between grazes. The thought behind this is to manage the land in a way that is reminiscent of how the buffalo would have grazed the grasslands before settlers started farming the land. According to Döbert, 80 per cent of cattle producers practice rotational grazing, but only five to 10 per cent practice AMP management.
The project Döbert was involved with was completed in March of 2021, where a group of U of A researchers looked at 70 different ranches from across the Prairies, comparing those using AMP grazing with those that didn’t. Spearheaded by Dr. Mark Boyce, the study took five years and looked at not only water infiltration, but also carbon sequestration, nitrogen concentrations, microbial communities and more.
Specifically, for the work Döbert did, they examined the difference between water infiltration when it came to AMP grazing or not.
“Infiltration is not necessarily 100 per cent correlated to availability,” Döbert says. “But obviously, if more water is infiltrating into the soil, there’s a much greater chance that more water is also going to be available over time. So again, it’s not 100 per cent correlation. But the chance that more water is available, because significantly more water infiltrates is greater.”
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