What is the problem?

Interest and debate around cell grazing and its merits, compared to other rotational and continuous grazing methods, is high. This review aimed to examine the evidence base.

What did the research involve?

• Examined previous reviews of continuous and rotational grazing – 29 papers were assessed (6 from Australia and 23 from overseas)
• Conducted a computer-based survey of peer-reviewed scientific papers that compared stocking methods.

What were the key findings?

• There have been many comparisons of continuous stocking with various forms of rotational stocking over many years and the majority of these have shown that animal production from continuously grazed pasture is similar or greater than that achieved with rotational stocking.
• Only one of the 11 studies that reported animal production found LWG/head was higher for Cell Grazing when stocking methods were compared at the same stocking rate.
• There were 17 comparisons of herbage mass (12 at the same stocking rate and 5 with a higher stocking rate for cell Grazing); for two of these yields were higher for Cell Grazing with no difference for the other 15.
• “This review of experiments comparing continuous grazing with Cell Grazing confirms the conclusions of Briske et al. (2008) that, in terms of plant and animal production, the experimental evidence does not show that Cell Grazing is superior to continuous grazing.”

Final comment

There is growing importance of the need to improve grazing management, in particular, management of stocking rate, but the experimental evidence indicates that adoption of cell grazing is not superior to alternative approaches for improving grazing management.