Effects of Modified Voisin Rational Grazing in grasslands, Magallanes region and chilean Antarctic

This study aims to evaluate the effect of a Modified Voisin Rational Grazing system on sheep farming. Different studies have shown that the implementation of Voisin grazing increases pasture production and animal load, without the need to use chemical fertilizers, reducing production costs and dependence on agroindustrial inputs. The aim was to compare continuous grazing with stocking rate with Modified Voisin Rational Grazing on the composition, structure and biological diversity of plant species in two typical formations of the Magellanic steppe (vega and mata-coirón), using the modified Whittaker method. The biological factors that affect the distribution of species between the different treatments were analyzed. Finally, we estimated the available forage of the Modified Voisin Rational Grazing and the stocking rate in vega and mata-coirón using the 9-step methodology. The results indicate that the Modified Voisin Rational Grazing failed to promote significant variation in species diversity and richness. On the contrary, a decrease in vegetation cover was recorded in the mata-coirón and vegas formations. This causes an increase in the percentage of bare soil, resulting in a decrease in the availability of forage, which is reflected in meadows. On the other hand, the PC had a relevant increase in the availability of forage for the mata-coirón formation; Regarding vegetation cover and percentages of bare soil, these also decrease over time for both plant formations evaluated, with the decrease being smaller in mata-coirón