Drought-adapted Grazing: A Practical Guide to Mob Grazing

Climate change, more frequent droughts and declining soil fertility are becoming a problem for agriculture in Central Europe. In suckler cow husbandry, overgrazing and lack of feed from own land are increasingly becoming a challenge. Mob Grazing can offer an alternative to conventional grazing systems for pasture management, especially in drought-prone regions. Characteristic features include very long resting periods of the plant stand, a high growth rate during grazing, a high stocking density, a short grazing duration of less than one day and a large grazing residue of more than half of the plants. The trampled plant residues are intended to form a protective mulch layer that has a positive effect on soil moisture. Under which climatic and site conditions does Mob Grazing offer advantages over conventional grazing methods? And how can it be implemented in practice? This guide is intended to provide practical decision-making support to farms and is the result of our EIP-project „Mob Grazing in Arable Forage Production – Economic and Ecological Evaluation of a New Grazing Method“ (www.mob-grazing.de), from August 2021 to the end of 2024. Additionally, results from the DBU-funded project „Mob Grazing in Permanent Grassland“ at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development are integrated.