Guide to Regenerative Grazing Leases: Opportunities for Resilience

CHAPTER 3. Agricultural Management Plans (Continued)
MONITORING
The type and intensity of monitoring to be agreed upon should depend on the
goals of the operation and the resources available. Even before working with a
given lessee, it is important for landholders to collect baseline data and begin
monitoring ecological outcomes that are important to them. This not only helps with
goal setting and planning, but also provides crucial baselines that can be used to
accurately measure the impact of a lessee's management. For long-term monitoring,
landholders and lessees should make sure their sampling and measurement methods
are consistent (process, location, time of year, laboratories used, etc.), and that the
time and costs required to use these methods are realistic.
Monitoring can be as simple as visually assessing progress towards a SMART goal,
keeping good records in a field journal, and collecting photo documentation. For
example, it is possible to qualitatively determine whether a ranch’s management is
providing habitat for wildlife by setting up game cameras in the field or by keeping a
bird list. Visual assessments of the soil can also be made, including ones for smell,
color, rooting patterns, and signs of life.
In some cases, it may be desirable to conduct more rigorous or quantitative
assessments. These can include affordable, low-tech options like bare ground
estimates using a quadrat or transect, soil compaction tests using a penetrometer,
in-field assessments of soil aggregate stability, or water infiltration estimates using
a homemade infiltrometer. They may also include methods or measurements that
require some sort of technical assistance, such as point counts for bird diversity,
soil sampling for laboratory analysis of carbon and other parameters, or vegetation
surveys using standardized methodologies.
Carrying on the examples from above, one way to track progress toward the first
SMART goal would be by conducting bird point counts across multiple years
(Please note: Goals that include migratory animals should also consider the overall
populations in comparison. If there is a downward trend in overall populations due
to off-property land management impacts these can have far greater consequences
than what is accomplished on one ranch.) Progress towards the second SMART
goal could be tracked by sampling soil every few years and analyzing it at a service
laboratory for soil carbon using the dry combustion method. Progress toward the
third SMART goal could be tracked by measuring water infiltration rates using the
single ring infiltrometer method and comparing rates to those from neighboring
properties or published values from the surrounding region. Finally, progress toward
the fourth SMART goal could be tracked by conducting a yearly vegetation survey
using the line-point intercept method and comparing counts of invasive species from
before grazing started and after.
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